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A conversation about cars, trucks, tugs and other machines of transport that flows like an ADHD fever dream, hosted by Hoonigan co-founder and 321 Action Action director Brian Scotto. Enjoy, it’s gonna be a bizarre ride.
S4 E31 Audio
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[00:00:00] And we're back. Another episode of Very Vehicular. As always, I'm your host, Brian Scotto. This episode, we are featuring two old men yelling at clouds. Yeah, that's right, David Freiburger joins me today to talk about all things from roadkill to how we see car culture today, doing stuff on YouTube, to why neither of us have running cars even though we own 30-plus of them.
Yeah, that's the episode. It's a good one, and it's two and a half hours and a bit. Enjoy it.
David Freiberger, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm stoked to have you here. Um, I, I wanna get into [00:01:00] something that I realized we really share in common, and I didn't think about this until I was just kind of prepping for the show. You and I both have really cool cars, but we like our- Let's say shit boxes more.
Oh, yeah. Like, you have F-Bomb, right, which is, I think, one of... Like, that car was so inspirational to me, such a cool car. Really, really rad, well-sorted. But you spend most of your days just working on, like, hoopties. I have for a long time. I've found, I guess, in the media that I've been in charge of, that going real, going budget, going rough around the edges- Yeah
a- attracts the real people. Big surprise. Yeah. And, and it's what I've always been into. I don't have skills for fabrication, paint, and all that stuff, but I can build an engine, I can bolt suspension together, and I, I've found that shiny paint actually makes me angry. Yeah, yeah. I've learned that, uh, the minute I paint a car, I stop driving it.
Yep, that is 100% true. Yeah, it goes to [00:02:00] paint jail, it comes back. The problem with me for painting a car is not that all of a sudden the car is great, but now the bumpers have to be perfect, the grill's gotta be perfect. You know, one door ding and the whole car is ruined. Yep. Which is why, with my beaters, I don't have to worry about any of that.
And I wanna worry about mechanical stuff, not cosmetic stuff. I'm just not a fiddly guy, making my instruments and my dash perfect. Yeah. I'm an auto meter gauge slapped under the dash and let's go kind of guy. I, I read somewhere, someone said, um, "New parts on beater cars is cool. Beater parts on new cars is not."
Right. Now, that was, that was one of my, I don't know, catch phrases- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... that didn't catch on, which is, "Great parts on bad cars." Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my thing. Like, that, and that works, right? Like, you're like, "Oh, that thing's a complete rust bucket," but you've got, like, you know, an 871 coming through the hood.
Right. That's cool. Right, right. That's what makes it good. Really, cars, uh, to me, are... It, the attraction to them is all about [00:03:00] the stance and the vibe. Mm-hmm. And an element of that is, ooh, what could you actually do with that? And if I have a '69 Impala and it's bone stock, who cares? But as soon as it has an 871 sticking out of the hood and it does burnouts for an eighth mile, then you're like, "Okay, I get it, that's cool."
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. For you, though, 'cause you've mentioned before, you like, for the media side of it, but personally, what do you like working on more? Definitely the beaters. Yeah. I, I always say, I like things mechanically clean. I don't want a bunch of grease on stuff, I don't want wires strung everywhere.
I want well-executed mechanical stuff that functions. I don't want to worry about paint and interior. Yeah. I'm pretty much the same, although I think for me, I, for the longest time, I would scope creep cars. So I'd take them apart and I would never get them back together. Oh, of course. And it was actually, I think, it was Hot Rod Power Tour that forced me to finish a car and make it roadworthy, versus, like, getting it finished for SEMA- But that was a beater
which is something different. It w- yeah, and it's like, the, but it was one of my favorite, I mean, my Nova [00:04:00] is still one of my favorite cars of all time, and that is good parts on a bad car. Yep. Like, that's what that car is. And it's like, and in the end, I, the whole time I'm like,, "When I get from, home from Power Tour, I'll fix all of this" And I didn't.
It was- And like, it just kept it, it just kept running. And I've realized now, after years of this, all of the cars that I stripped down to the chassis and said I was gonna repaint, I was gonna do all this with, are headaches. And the cars that I just fixed as they broke and kept them running was the bet- are, are actually the cars I have better memories from.
And you had that- Yeah ... like famous line of like, just like, you know, "It's better..." What is it? "Don't get it right, just get it running." "Just get it running." Yeah. Yeah. Which, like, I need to live by that more, 'cause I keep tearing down all my cars and then not putting them back together. The, you know, the whole, "Don't get it right, just get it running", is a little bit misleading, because what I really mean is your car's going to be stuck in the garage forever if it has to meet your ideal of perfection.
Yeah. Whereas, if you live with the garbage paint job and make the thing run and drive, you're motivated by getting out there and [00:05:00] actually using the thing. That's what that expression's about. It's not really about, "Just butcher your car together." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although, there can be an element of that. If I've got a car that has a brand-new engine and trans in and it's ready to run, but I haven't got time to wire the whole thing the way I wanna wire it- Yep
string a couple wires, zip tie them under the steering column, put an ignition switch on the thing, and go. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Now, the problem is, the way my life operates, I never have time to get back to it and actually make it tidy. But, uh, there's something I like also about the...
And I picked this up from four-wheeling. Sort of the The having a beater that has a bunch of tricks on it that I, you know, I like kind of the things zip-tied together that actually works perfectly. Mm-hmm. I like the, well, I needed to keep this wrench, and so I've got this little bit of paracord- Mm-hmm ... I'm just gonna tie it- Mm-hmm
to the roll bar. Uh, that stuff is almost character to me. Yeah, I realized at some point in my YouTube career [00:06:00] working on cars that I'm a really piss-poor mechanic in a shop, but I'm a really good mechanic on the side of the road. Yeah. Like, I can make something get me home, but I can't, like, seem to do a better job at it when, like, when I actually try to do it right is when it falls apart.
Yeah. Um, one of the things we talk about often on this show, and, uh, you know, I think you kind of live in the antithesis of it, is that YouTube has built this world where everyone thinks they have to, like, do these full builds, right? And everything has to have an engine swap or a frame swap, and just the craziest things that they're doing.
But, you know, we grew up very differently, and I, you know, you have a decade or so on me, but, like, and when I got my first car in the mid-'90s, it's like every month you did another thing, right? Like, you di- you fix this, you change this, maybe it's wheels, maybe it's this, and you slowly built cars. But YouTube has sort of told kids, like, you need to take a car, tear it all apart, and do everything at once, and do all these crazy things, and I actually think we're doing a massive disservice by, like, not letting people enjoy, [00:07:00] like, slowly modifying cars.
But you still seem to be in that world of, like, just, just enjoy it and drive it. I am, and I think there's a whole lot of other YouTubers that are that way, too. They're just not headline YouTubers. Right, right. Right? And that is, I think, part of the problem is that I will never become huge on YouTube because I don't have a drive to every week being, you know, putting, you know, "Well, we had two motors in our last car.
Let's go three this time." "We had 1,000 horsepower last time. Now it's 2,000." Right, right. You know, I'm not doing that big, massive, crazy Westen Champlin kind of- Yeah, yeah ... you know, stuff. And so that's not as click, click-worthy, and so I think people don't look for the channels that do that sort of logical real-life thing.
There's some escapism in wanting to have those crazy builds. Yep. And I'm actually sort of past that phase. I mean, Mike and I, the, I'm not gonna say we invented it, but we did bust the [00:08:00] door down for a lot of these guys on YouTube, and we did a bunch of wild and crazy stuff, and now I'm kinda like, "You know, I would like a functional car now."
Mm-hmm . And so I'm gonna work on that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's actually funny 'cause the next question I was gonna go into is that I, I think you guys pioneered the modern YouTube, right? Like, there was a lot of other people who were out there doing it before, but Roadkill sort of created this, like, really casual, like, just go have fun with cars.
It was a mix of build and adventure, and it felt like something that didn't have a place on television and felt very YouTube. Right. And, and, uh, you know, w- you and I talked a little about it, but I never really asked you the question. It's like, as magazine guys, which is where I got my start as well, that must have felt like such a massive departure from what you guys were doing.
Did it feel that way? How did you convince a publishing company that this was the right move? I mean, I, I was having similar conversations, and they were like, "Video?" Like, we- Right ... we sell [00:09:00] ad pages. Like, what are you talking about? Like, how, how did that actually come to fruition? Well, I can address all of that, but first I wanna give one hat tip, which is you talk about Roadkill sort of being the thing that established- Mm-hmm
that format on YouTube. You can't forget Mighty Car Mods. Oh, 100%. Mighty Car Mods. They were ahead of us. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, significantly- Yeah ... and bigger. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, and those are great guys. They were also doing it on Australia, and I think- Mm-hmm ... we brought more of that American sensibility. Yeah.
Um, how did we talk the company into doing it? It was an interesting thing, and you might even remember this, when- YouTube wanted to go after cable TV. Yep. And so they were paying companies to create new content- Yeah ... just for YouTube. And the publishing company that I was working for, which is sort of whatever the leftover of Peterson Publishing was at the time- Yeah
I can't remember if it was Source or- Was it Primedia at that point? Primedia- Source Interlink ... or Source Interlink or, we call it PEPSI- Yeah ... which is Peterson- EMAP ... EMAP Primedia Source Interlink. Yeah. Yeah, it was one of those. But they were [00:10:00] paying that company to make new content for the MotorTrend channel, which was significantly- Yeah
large at the time, and, uh, it was interesting, the company thought that it was gonna be all about kind of European motorsports that the Americans couldn't get- Right ... and new car reviews. Right, they had, like, the Head to Head show and all those things with MotorTrend. And the Head to Head, and they were doing- Yeah
World's Greatest Drag Race, which- Yeah ... w- was really huge at the time. It did well. Yeah, it did very well. It did very, very well at the time. And then along came a couple of dirtbags, me and Mike Finnegan, and we were doing this show that was about nothing. You know, it was, the premise of that show was, "Hey, I'm here with my buddy and we're gonna have some fun with cars."
Yeah. And, and you'll decide if you like it or not, and it boomed. Yeah. And we became the biggest automotive show on YouTube kind of overnight, as far as individual episodes. Once again, credit to Mighty Car Mods. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were bigger than us. Yeah, they ... Yeah. You know, I just, I don't wanna seem like I'm that guy going- Of course, no, no, I agree
you know. That, that you have them and you have Project Binky. There's a couple things that were around for a really long time in that space. Right. But [00:11:00] definitely for the American market- Right ... you guys did the thing, yeah. And the thing is, you ask, "Well, how did you talk the publishing company into that format?"
Because, uh, they're based on advertising, and we weren't doing anything for advertisers. Well, the answer is YouTube was paying for it. Ah, yeah. That was the income, and then of course, they were making the money off YouTube, although- One of the things I dealt with for a long time was, um, you know, when the company took us off YouTube, there, people would comment, "They were making millions off ad revenue."
And it's like, no, the companies that were getting paid to make original content had a different agreement with YouTube- Yes ... than the average creator that was getting paid a share of ad revenue. Yeah. So it's- Also, ad revenue is a lot less than people realize it is. Yes, it is. Yes. Yeah. As I've come- We, we talk about that on this show all the time.
Yeah. It's like for most creators it's less than 10% of their income is what they get out of the ad revenue. The money is in the sponsorship, which is something I haven't really chased- Yeah ... like a moron. I, I should be doing that. It's difficult though, 'cause then you have bosses, right? And part of what [00:12:00] makes- Right
YouTube great is you don't have bosses. Yep. But then when you have partners or that, it makes it, it makes it a lot more difficult. Big part of the reason I haven't done it, I don't wanna be accountable for it, responsible for delivering some of that stuff. Yeah. You know? I mean, when you guys first started Re- like Roadkill, like was there a moment where you realized, "Oh, we, we got something here"?
First episode. Yeah. Yeah, because people lost their minds. It was amazing. We were sitting back shocked because we became the biggest show on the MotorTrend channel, which nobody expected. And on the other shows, people were writing, "More Roadkill. When's Roadkill? When's Roadkill?" Like, all their comments were about Roadkill.
And so Mike and I were floored by it. We did not see it coming at all. People ask all the time, you know, "Did you know it was gonna become what it did?" It's like, no, we had no idea until the audience fed that back to us. Man, I kind of would love to have been a fly on the wall inside some of those meetings of like everybody- Oh, man
at Motor Trend being like, "Wait, [00:13:00] this show's the one that's doing it?" Right. 'Cause you- Yeah ... it, even in the beginning, it felt like you guys had a shoestring budget compared to what they were doing- Oh, absolutely ... just with like everything else. Yeah, we did. Like they were out there doing big tracks, bringing out all these high-end cars- Yep
ton of camera operators, so on and so on, and you guys are like a few- But that was good for us. Yeah. It was good that we didn't have that massive budget, but it was more money than we had ever had to go just jerk around and play with cars- Yeah ... in stupid ways. Yep. And so we ran with that, and the, the more money we had and the more people we had, the more the show wasn't what it originally was.
Yeah. You know? And I have argued with people forever who say, "Oh, you guys sold out. The show became terrible. You lost the plot as soon as Dodge sponsored you." It's like, no, it was always me and Mike just doing what we wanted to do. Yeah. There may be a few episodes that are exceptions to that, but, but generally it was just us doing whatever we felt like doing.
It's- But it got too cushy. We had too many people on the production side of things- Mm ... making our life easy. [00:14:00] Isn't that funny how that works? And, and, yeah. And so, I mean, I, I recognize that it, it lost the rawness of the very earliest years. But nonetheless, it was always completely the legit, never scripted.
Yeah. You know? It, our plans didn't even really have an outline. It was more like, "I feel like going to Washington, DC. There's this guy with this garbage Mustang there. How about we just go there and fire that thing up and go sightseeing?" Yeah. And that was the premise. I mean, the early episodes, weren't you guys like literally like throwing a dart at a map kind of idea or something along those lines?
That was the very first- Yeah ... episode. Um, yeah, it was the very first episode, and people remember that really distinctly. Yeah, it, it really stood out for me for that reason. But it wasn't, uh, it wasn't the main theme- Yeah ... of the show. I- The, I'm gonna give you just a snapshot- Yeah ... background, just a little bit.
You know, I was the editor of Hot Rod Magazine, and the way the whole thing started is the company wanted more video on the website. So Mike and I started doing video on the website, [00:15:00] which is why when the YouTube deal came in, Angus MacKenzie, who- Yeah ... was editor-in-chief of MotorTrend, who was working on the YouTube deal, came to us and said, "Hey, mate, you need to make a show for this deal."
And really, the, the credit goes to Angus MacKenzie for making all of that happen- Mm-hmm ... and blowing through a lot of the corporate red tape on it. Um, having been the editor of Hot Rod, in 2007, I left and I started- Yeah ... a thing. I didn't start it. I became part of a thing called Car Junkie TV- Yep ... along with Nadery, who was doing- With Rice Boy TV
Rice Boy TV. Yeah. And it really, that was way early in streaming video. Really early. Really early. I tell lads all the time. Yeah. I'm like, "You guys are just, if you guys were five years later, everyone would be talking about the thing you guys built." Yes. Yeah. Five years later with the right technology. One, one of the things that happened is the websites were built in Flash.
Mm-hmm. And I remember sitting in a meeting one day, and the computer guy was talking to the money guy, and he goes, "Well, what, what are we doing about SEO on [00:16:00] this?" Which was a really new concept- Mm-hmm ... at the time. And he was like, "Oh, the browsers can't crawl Flash at all." It's like, "You mean if I search Car Junkie TV, I won't find it because of that?"
He's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah." I mean, it was a mess. So anyway, that went- ... out of, out of business. And in the off time between when I had lost Car Junkie TV and before they blessedly hired me back at Hot Rod, um, me and a guy named Chad Reynolds, who was with me on Car Junkie TV, were out pitching TV shows. Okay.
Yeah. And what we were pitching is one that kind of became Roadkill. I had this idea, it was called Man Versus Highway, and it was throw, throw a map, show up in a little town- Mm-hmm ... and you've got budget to buy a car. But my concept after that was, it, it's kind of what we did in the first episode. You have no money, so if you need to buy a part, you need to go wash dishes at the local diner, or you need to sell another [00:17:00] part- Ah, such a great show concept
off the car. Yeah. It's like, and your challenge is to get from here to there, and we're pitching it, actually, one of the most annoying things ever is they sold it to TruTV, which was a really small- Mm-hmm ... the cable channel, and two days later, Travel Channel came back to us and said, "We'll take a pilot." And like, ugh, imagine how big that would've been on the Travel Channel.
That would've been a perfect show for them, too. Right. Because it was travel. Yeah. It was seeing small town America and traveling from one place to another on a shoestring with you suffering along the way. Yeah. So that was a very, very long answer to you know- No, no, no. It, it brings me into another topic I wa- wanted to bring up, 'cause you love small town America.
Yep. I love small town America. One of my favorite things to do, and I, I refer to it as, like, road therapy. Like, if I'm having a really bad time, a lot of times, like, my friends or my wife will be like, "Maybe you just need to hit the road- Yeah ... and drive cross country or do this or do that." And I've driven cross country, you know- [00:18:00] multiple, multiple times.
And, and I, there's something I love about getting sort of just lost in these random places, and pulling into a small town, and finding, you know, finding this weird diner, and going and experiencing that. But then also just walking around and seeing this, like, thing that used to be there, right? Yeah. Like, unfortunately, so much of small town America is closed up.
But, and I know one of the things I love that you, you a lot of the times will post photos of just random places you go. Um, is that something you've always enjoyed? 'Cause it's clearly- Oh, yeah ... a driver for you. I have tons and tons, I've, ooh, just I can't even guess how many photos I have from my youth all the way up till now of small town photography.
And I'm very lucky that I have it, because now I go to those same places and that stuff's gone. Yeah. I'm happy to have been there. I'm also happy to be able to show it to people, go, "Here is what used to be here." I just love that, and it's kind of my shtick now. Yeah. I do these road trips, and one of my big things is finding a old photo and finding that location today, and doing the then and [00:19:00] now thing.
I saw that on some of your recent episodes- Yeah, and- ... where you're like here and then, yeah. It's cool. Unfortunately, it's old guys who dig that, you know? But once again, I know I'm never going to be a monster on YouTube. Yeah. I am doing comfortably what entertains me- Yep ... and occasionally doing a week episode to get myself through a week.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I just did one, for example, on I'm just gonna tell the audience everything I know about camshafts, which is- ... you know, I've got quite a bit of experience dyno testing. So I sat in my garage and talked about camshafts for an hour, and plopped that down. But other times, I'm doing car builds, and my favorite thing is these road trips.
Yeah, no, the road trip stuff is great, and I, I think it's, you know, as a person who's creating content, my favorite times at Hoonigan was when we would do these, like, fun adventures, right? And, uh, you know, as someone who grew up on the East Coast, getting to travel down in Mexico was always a ton of fun. It felt, like, so new, and areas felt lawless, and there's just such cool culture there.
Or driving through the middle of the country or through [00:20:00] other countries or whatever, and I think that storytelling part is, like, I don't feel like a lot of people are doing that on YouTube anymore, because the algorithm doesn't support it. Right. Right? Like, it's not the same episode every week kind of thing, right?
And- Yeah ... and I, and I'm stoked to see that there are people like you who are still doing it. And you have, you have a pretty strong YouTube audience still. I mean, there's still a lot of people there. Yeah. I think the whole bubble has burst. Like, yeah, there's still Westin, there's Cletus, but everybody else is sort of living in that space, you know?
Vice Grip Derek's still very- Vice, yeah, Derek is, Derek's crushing it. And- Yeah ... he actually does have that model, right, that works really well for him. Yeah. Although I did see him post the other day just saying, like, how hectic his life is now- Oh, dude, I- ... because of it ... I, I'm, I'm good friends with him, and basically because we enjoy the same things.
And, uh, I didn't know who he was when he first introduced- Mm-hmm ... himself at a Cletus event, uh, but we just hit it off. Um, and he's got the ultimate formula, which is- Buy the junk car, fix it, and then road trip it. And if you could do that and also [00:21:00] do what I do with the small towns and everything and package that together, that is- Mm-hmm
the thing. Look how many people have knocked him off. Yeah. Like, the find a vehicle, rescue it, drive it home thing, the will it run- Yeah ... there's hundreds of channels trying it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a great idea. I mean, I, I've done it my- on my own of, like, go buy a car and then, like, get it home by yourself.
It's like, it's such a journey. Yeah. And, um, I, I, I mentioned this probably too much on the pod, but one of my favorite trips, I went to the, I went to Vancouver. I bought this Audi 4000, and it broke every day on the way home. That's what the audience likes. And I got to meet all these people- Yeah ... because it would break, and I would post up, you know, the bat signal on Instagram and s- and it was in the middle of the wintertime, and someone'd say, "Ah, I got a warm garage."
And then turns out that guy competes in racing, and I'm sitting there talking to him the whole time about his race cars and does this, and it, it's really fun, and I wish I had more time in my life to just do that stuff- Yeah ... 'cause that is my favorite, you know, kind of storytelling. And, and when you guys did it with Roadkill, there was that part [00:22:00] of me, and you probably know this as an idea person, that when you see something and you're like, "Ah, that's really good.
I wish I did that first." Yeah, all the time. Like, that's, I think, the highest level of praise is when you see something and you're like, "Damn it, I wish we did that. That's really good." I mean, l- uh, uh, you know, from that, and, and y- you've had an, we're gonna bounce around today. You've had an extremely storied life and, um, and you've been through, you know, multiple decades of this.
But for you, what was it like going from print to YouTube and then oddly to television? Which actually seems, I think, kind of like a weird... Like, today you see a lot of people going from TV to YouTube because of the model. Right. But you guys kind of went the, went the opposite way. Well, through no fart- fart.
Through no fault of our own- Yeah ... um, be- just because the company changed hands and they wanted to do that, although arguably the company changed hands because Discovery- Right ... wanted the video part of the business. Um, but going from print to video, [00:23:00] I think the interesting thing is I unfortunately still consider myself a journalist rather than a star or host or personality.
100%. It's not really that when you're on video. The thing went from me telling stories about other people, commenting on the marketplace, digging deep into technical things, into me being the story. Mm-hmm. That was the strangest thing to me about it. I was pretty comfortable doing video at the time because we'd had Hot Rod TV for a lot of years.
I got interviewed quite a bit, but it was always about something else. And now, even what we're doing here, we're talking about me in- Right ... a large sense, and it's weird. People accuse me, you know, of, you know, "You've let it get to your head." I'm like, "Man, I really hope that's not true." But I know the reason for it.
It's that I'm always talking about myself- Right ... because that's the story, and I don't love it [00:24:00] And it's a difficult place to be in. I've felt the same thing. I started obviously as a journalist as well, and in the early days, I was the guy behind the scenes doing the things for Ken Block and for everyone else, and I eventually got more and more in front of camera, really because it was a necessity to help tell the story.
Like, I realized it was easier for me to step in and almost be the live narrator. Mm-hmm. Like, "Here's what we're doing. This is the setup," 'cause in my head, I knew how it was all gonna edit together, and I was still coming at it from a formula perspective, right? Everything to me was how it lives between the pages, right?
And a lot of the other guys are just, like, wanting to drive cars and break stuff and do that, and they didn't wanna do that piece. And then all of a sudden, I became more and more and more the voice, and w- one day, I'm, I realized, like, oh, this is weird because I'm, it's now about me- Yeah ... and not about someone else.
So I, I, I totally feel you on that 'cause it is a weird transition, and I think it was only a few years ago that I sort of accepted I wasn't a journalist anymore, and I had been with Hoonigan for so long and did all this other stuff, and I still [00:25:00] very much felt like I was a journalist. And I'm like, wait, I'm not actually telling stories about other people anymore.
Like, this, I mean, I am, but I'm telling stories of, like, my group. It's such a, it's such a shift. It is. It's a strange, strange thing. Um, th- the other problem with the mentality, you know, I was magazine editor for 25 years and involved with them for another 10 after that, well, eight, um, is that look at my channel.
You mentioned earlier, it's like, oh, the algorithm wants to see you do this every week. Yeah. And they absolutely do. The algorithm wants the same video predictably every single week- Yeah ... and I don't do that. Same opening, same length. Same thing. Same thing. And I don't do that at all. Yeah. I- my channel is a magazine.
I literally will be talking about camshafts in one month, building a, or one week, building a car the next week, and hitting the road- Yeah ... the next week. Um, it, it's, it's a wide variety of stuff, and I know that's gonna hold me back, but my interest isn't in just [00:26:00] doing one thing over and over and over. And we brought up Derek.
That guy absolutely destroys himself- Mm-hmm ... making those rescues happen every single week, and I'm too old for that. Yeah. I've told him, "Dude, when I was your age, I was working that hard. I foolishly was doing it for the publishing company instead of for myself." Yeah. But I know kind of what those hours look like.
I used to work 36-hour shifts all the time. And I'm not gonna do it again, so. Yeah. But, you know, in that era, we didn't have a choice. There, it was so gate kept that if you didn't work for a publishing company, no one was gonna listen to you. Yeah. Right? I mean, there was no choice but to go f- attach yourself to a big publishing company.
I was at Harris Publishing, and even Harris Publishing had to do work with Source Interlink to be able to get ourselves into certain newsstands and things like that. Oh, yeah. It's the old print mafia, you know? Yeah, I ... D- you don't wanna talk about the newsstand circulation business. I mean, I guess it's all but gone now, but wow, was that crooked.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Hey, let's take a quick break, and we'll come back and we'll get a little bit more into magazines. Oh, hey, what's up? [00:27:00] Here we are with another story time interruption brought to you by my good friends at FCP Euro. Look, if you've spent any time in the Euro scene, you have heard the term OEM Plus.
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FCPeuro.com for those of us who have an affliction for European cars. Do you miss print magazines? I don't miss working at them. Okay. Uh, someone invited me to write a story for a publication the other day- Mm-hmm ... and I just said, "Nah." I'm, that, that part of my life's actually over. Yeah. Which is kind of weird, because I did it for so, so long and valued it so much and valued other writers.
I just don't have that in me anymore. Oh. It's a different world. It's, you know what it is? It's short attention span is the problem. I've been sucked into modern media, [00:29:00] and it's hard for me to sit down and focus enough to write a, you know, however long story for a magazine. Yeah. I've recently written a couple articles for Road and Track, and I definitely found it to be such a different process than it was back in the day, and it takes longer now for me, where it used to be like, "All right.
I'm gonna sit down at 6:00 PM and I'll be done by 10:00." Mm-hmm. You know, like, 'cause we were just writing features all the time, and now it's like it takes me days to, like, stay through it and, and get through it. Yeah. Do you miss the making of a magazine, though? I really enjoyed magazine craft. Right. I spent a lot of years unable to do that in the corporate environment, but, um, the, a time came in 2004 when we had a change to, I guess, Primedia, and, uh, a guy came in named Craig Rees, who was a wild man, kind of genius about magazine presentation.
Mm. And he drove me to do a big redesign on Hot Rod, and, uh, it was huge. [00:30:00] Night and day what, uh, he and an art director named Alan Albanian did. Um, they, they took my ideas of what does the audience want to see and how can we present that differently- Took Alan's creative skill, took Craig Rees' spin, and really, I mean, I'm getting chills thinking about it.
I, I literally teared up the first time I saw an actual printed copy of this new thing that we had made. Mm. I was really, really proud of that, and subsequently, I loved dealing with the photography and art direction and, you know- Yeah ... thinking of ways to present stories differently than just a whole bunch of paragraphs.
Yeah, I think the thing I miss the most, and I- it's the thing I feel like YouTube doesn't really let you do, is curate this, like, collection of things in an issue, right? You know, like, how the front of the book feels, what, what type of features there were, and how all of that packages. And, you know, I- as someone who grew up on print media and r- you know, reading it and then eventually working in it, there's something so fun [00:31:00] about just, like, completely devouring a magazine top to bottom, right?
Mm-hmm. Like, you'd have this magazine that you were either, you know, you're either reading at school or, like, you know, I remember going on vacation with my parents, and they would let me buy six magazines for, like, the whole two weeks we were gone. Yeah. You know, and I would just, you know, it was always car mags or when I was younger, Radio Controlled Car Action and things like that.
Yeah. And I would just eat up, like, every inch of the magazine. Um, and that allowed for, like, Easter eggs and all these hidden things and, you know, you really got to get these different tone of the writers. And now I think with YouTube it's like you can get this, but it's more y- you- it's like you're watching, like, nine different videos from nine different creators that all have s- like, a slightly different red thread.
And, and it's funny before you mentioned that you treat your YouTube channel more like a magazine, and I actually wish that that format, like a video magazine, would work for YouTube. But we all know- It doesn't ... we all know it doesn't. Yeah. It's, I still wanna do one, but, like, I just know it doesn't because, like, the thumbnail doesn't serve the [00:32:00] exact thing that happens- Yep
in the first 30 seconds. It's, it doesn't work. You talk about going through the whole magazine. I put a lot of effort into crafting the thing as a whole front to back. Mm-hmm. You know, there was a time when editors w- would say, "Oh, a magazine's due. Let me take all the stories that I've got available and hand them in, and that's the magazine."
I would try and craft the thing of what is the theme here, and what is the pace that I'm bringing the audience through? I would even think for the people who flip through it from the back, how do I- Mm-hmm ... attract them? Um, and yeah, that's all gone, and one of the things that's frustrated me about YouTube is that- I kill myself shooting story, shooting B-roll, putting it together, and I think people have rightly, rightfully said to me is, "Dude, it's not a TV show."
Right. "Don't do that." You know? Yeah. Get one camera and talk to it and don't edit. I know. And I see these people who are doing way better than I am on YouTube, who obviously have put way less effort into it, and, and that is frustrating to me. But I also understand that so much [00:33:00] of that is personality. Right.
And I know that I don't have sort of the, you know, "Whoa, that guy's such a personality" type, type shtick, you know? My shtick is in what I'm doing and the information that I'm providing and the historical context of it. It's not that I'm a particularly hilarious or good-looking guy that people are dying to watch.
And so I feel like I have to put in sort of that production value. Yeah. I, I think you give yourself a bit more credit. You are definitely a, you are definitely a personality and a character to all of us. But I, I do, I do feel your pain on that, that I think it's very hard for me to put out something that doesn't feel like it has an e- element of craft in it.
Yeah. Like, I, like, and that was, I, a lot of people have accused me or, like, Hoonigan of, like, "You guys were just trying too hard," like, "You were just trying to do too much with things," and, like, "You could have just put out more episodes and, like, you know, not edited them as nicely." And I was like, "N- I couldn't have," because, like, what makes me happy [00:34:00] wasn't always the view success, it was more, like, this feels cool.
I like how this is- Yep ... put together, and I like the way that even if we shot it on crappy cameras or whatever, that there's a thought in how the story arc is rolled out, instead of just, like, I started recording, and then I ended recording, and I uploaded it. Which, like, it works for some people, it just, I don't take pride in that, and I think, like, that was a big thing for me.
Another thing about magazines versus digital or, or YouTube is magazines, you could get away with a lot of stuff because nobody really knew what worked and what didn't. Mm-hmm. Even on the newsstand- That's a good point ... you know, you would get sales numbers back, and it would be a huge issue, and you'd look at it and go, "I don't know why."
And other times, you'd think it was great, and you'd put it out there- And the publisher's like, "More purple cars." Right. Precisely. Precisely. You know, no one really knew, and so as the editor, you could actually make arguments and win over management by just baffling them with your- Ah ... your plan. Whereas now, there's- That's a really good point [00:35:00] I never thought about
there's data. There's a real good lie detector when it comes to- Oh, I had a- ... to that ... I had a great moment one time. I was the editor of Rodin Custom at the time, and we had a issue that had absolutely failed miserably, and they called me on the carpet for it. And I sat around, said, "I cannot wait for this meeting."
So I sat in this big room with all the mucky mucks- Mm-hmm ... and they're dragging me through the mud. "Why is this happening? Why did this tank? What did you do?" and everything. And they came to me and said, "So what's your excuse?" And I just said, "Look at the on sale date." They're like, "What does that have to do with it?"
Look at the on sale date, 9/11. Oh, I loved that moment. Oh, yeah. It was so good, and it was literally like- Pe- people weren't running out to the newsstand that day. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, "Okay, we get it." And the problem with that is everyone had forgotten because we didn't get our newsstand sales numbers back for, like, four months.
Yep. And so that's why those guys hadn't put the two and two together, and we were the first magazine [00:36:00] that we had numbers back on that, uh, was affected by that event. Yeah. So. You're obviously best known for your time at Hot Rod, but, you know, you were at Car Craft, Four Wheeler, all these things. Which one did you enjoy the most working at?
I mean, I real- like, Hot Rod was, like, later in your career, and, you know, you get more cynical at that point and jaded. I started at Hot Rod Magazine- Okay ... as a staffer in 1991. Okay. Then I became the editor of Four Wheel and Off Road, and I loved that because I, I love four-wheeling, and I loved going to all the different trails and all the different travel.
And I very much switched that from a jamboree show truck magazine- Mm-hmm ... into a real world use, trail riding, and work truck kind of mag. So there was pride in that. After that, I went to Car Craft, and I changed that one radically, too. It was very much like a pro touring kind of handling type thing, and it was way too early for those types of cars.
And they were tanking the magazine on the newsstand as a result of it. My very first cover said, "Big, Fat, [00:37:00] Hairy Camshafts." I turned it back into a street machine magazine- Yep ... of undrivable, cool cars. And that was really fun. Redesigned that one, too. Put a lot of little Easter eggs in that one. We would literally get our layouts and, and all the staff would just make little comments in the margins, and we would type them in and put them in there and publish them.
Um, and so that created... The, the audience and the advertisers called it Junkyard Craft when I took over- Hmm ... because I started doing basically what I carried on at Roadkill. Yeah. The whole thing I talked to you about, about real wins, that's what I'd done at Four Wheel and Off Road, that's what I did at Car Craft.
And then I moved to Rod & Custom, which is a different type of audience. It's older guys. They don't like beater garbage. Yep. And you have to adapt to that. I can't just carry my shtick into any given marketplace and have it work. And so I, I accommodated what I knew the audience wanted on that deal.
Probably my least favorite magazine that I worked on, and then I came to Hot [00:38:00] Rod. And the joy in that, I think, was the redesign that I told you about. Yeah. There was a, a lot of success there, which- Yep ... you know, I liked. So I basically just gave you the reasons why- Yeah ... I liked every magazine. I mean, I'll, I'll give you the, uh, you know, I'll give you guys the props on Hot Rod.
It is probably the mag- the magazine I held a subscription to the longest, as it started to become, you know, m- like, why do you read magazines anymore? Right. Because Hot Rod, and I- I always wondered this, and I'll, I, I'm gonna ask you the question, was, like- Hot Rod seemed to be something that knew its audience very well and wasn't trying to gain a different audience, right?
Like, and, and we used to talk about this at Hoonigan all the time, is that a brand at some point has to decide, do you age with your audience or do you alienate your aging audience and continue to look at the new funnel? That was the big, big challenge at Hot Rod. Yeah, and I, I think that you guys did a good job of maybe living somewhere in a [00:39:00] middle space, but never alienating, I think, uh, at least the audience that I felt was original to the magazine at the time I was reading it, right?
And- Yeah The thing I always said was that my first responsibility is to the audience- Right ... and then to the brand, and then to the advertiser, and then to the company. And, you know, I, I put Hot Rod second to the audience, but it was a responsibility to the legacy that went back to 1948 with that deal.
Mm-hmm. And it was a responsibility to keep it at the pinnacle, because it was the world's car, largest car magazine for a time. MotorTrend eclipsed it. Mm-hmm. Um, it was certainly the largest sort of dirty hands magazine. And I don't know, it, it was a, big part of it was the history for me and the legacy of what that was, and I really got involved in history, I think, at that magazine.
I went deeper than I ever had been, and actually launched a magazine called Hot Rod Deluxe- Yep ... which was all about the old [00:40:00] days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I, I... Look, I think it's, I think we also now probably both find ourselves in the same conversation, which is do you as a personal brand con- continue to age with your audience, who- Oh, a-
who love you and mean a lot. Like, you are... You know, I read this thing the other day which said, um, "I don't wanna be famous, I wanna be important." Mm-hmm. And I thought it was a great line, because it's like being important to somebody is way more valuable than being famous to somebody, right? Like, if you r- you know, if you're a magazine writer and they read what you write, or you create content and it's like an important part of them, versus them just caring about you because they saw you in a movie or something, right?
And I think a lot of us live in that world of we provide something to people, so there's a, a level of importance, uh, to that. Um, but you have to make the decision, and I think about it all the time, of like I have this podcast, and most of the people who are on this podcast have been in this business for 20-plus years.
Yeah. And we tend to talk about the old times. Yep. That means I'm probably gonna [00:41:00] alienate a younger audience, but I'm okay with that because either the young audi- younger audience wants to either learn about what was happening, or, uh... But like I don't know if I connect as well to the younger audience, and I feel like I'm kind of faking who I am.
Yeah. You asked do you continue to- Yeah ... redevelop yourself. Me? No. I've, I'm capped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A- and I know it, but fortunately, most of my audience is my age or a little bit younger- Yeah ... and frankly, they're the people advertisers want. And I'm gonna be able to sustain the balance of my career based on those people.
Yeah. And the whole thing about, you know, do you want fame? Uh, I... No. Yeah. I, I'm not a guy who loves the public eye, but I do want credibility. And one of the things that really bothers me about modern media is the whole influencer thing, and how people don't need credibility in order to be recognized and heard.
Yeah, I think that probably comes from the journalistic roots, right? Yeah. I mean, the worst thing I think as a journalist would [00:42:00] be you'd write something, and then you would get fact-checked on something that you did, and it was wrong, especially after printing. But it happens all the time. It happens. Yeah.
And like having to run a correction was like a ugh. We- And now it's like no one even cares. We used to say doctors bury their mistakes; we publish ours. That's a good one. Yeah. Did you, you guys ran a corrections page in, in, uh, Hot Rod? Well, it wasn't a full page. No, no, but like you- like the bottom of the masthead or something like that?
Yeah. We would if it was relevant- Yeah, yeah ... if it was really worthy. Yeah. If it was like, you know, "Oh, you said that this car owner was from Poughkeepsie, is actually from- Whatever, yeah ... you know, the- what? Down the street." And that's nah. But- Yeah, sometimes- Yeah ... you'd get, like, just typos and, like, you'd, like, the wrong horsepower for a car.
Right. And the automaker would just rip you apart, especially if it was a lower number. Like, I don't remember Corvette complaining when we gave them more power than they said. Right. But when it was less, they were like- Yeah, no, it happened. One of the worst things I ever did was put on a cover blurb, and there was no story in the magazine.
'Cause it- you f- it was just one of those, like, it was supposed to be in that issue, and yeah. Yeah, [00:43:00] exactly. We had designed the cover, which m- I, I always preach design the cover first to sell the magazine and then write the stories that fulfill that. Um, and so we had planned to do this story, and it got cut at the last second.
I never changed the cover. When I- this is the part that you just reminded me of this. I forgot how involved the publishers would get in the cover. I don't know if it was like that for you. But they wouldn't even read the magazine. Yeah. But they would spend an entire day just browbeating me on the cover, "Change that, do that.
What's that color? What if it was this color? What, what about if the car was this position?" Over and over for hours and hours of like will the cover sell, and they all seemed to have their own mind of what it was, and it was like- Yeah ... it was like the, my least favorite day of making magazines. Well, here's the kind of statement which is why people say I have too much ego-
which is this. I had proven myself so successful for so long that I was virtually autonomous. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a good place to be in then. Yeah. And that, that works, that works really well. I was doing a car magazine at a mus- at a publishing [00:44:00] company that mostly did music. Mm-hmm. So they were just like, "No, it needs to look like Double XL- Uh-huh
or Revolver." And you're like, "Eh, it's a completely different audience." But, like, and you normally have people, I'm putting cars on the cover. It's very different, so. Um, after, you know, um, obviously I know you were just at NHRA. I did read that unfortunately you've decided to leave. I had to quit that, yeah. So, just d- it was a t- you had tinnitus or?
I have tinnitus. Type, yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you have tinnitus, you always have tinnitus. Yeah. Do y- your ears don't ring at all? I think I do have a s- a, a slight bit of it. We were talking about it before the show. You know, I grew up going to punk rock shows, no ear protection, like, worked with bands, would, like, sit next to the speakers.
Yep. Never thought about it. And then obviously around race cars for a ton of my life, and, um, my, you know, my, my kid and my wife always complain to me 'cause they'll be like, "Do you hear me?" And I'm like, "Uh, yeah, sorry, what?" Like, I just like- Yeah ... I don't, there's certain things. Well- But I do get, sometimes the ringing will happen, but it won't [00:45:00] last, it's not nonstop.
I'll get it for a few hours and then it goes away. For you, is it always there? 24/7. Ugh. And it's so loud. Like, for example, I can hear the ringing in my ears above the volume of what I'm hearing you in my headset. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's really, really bad, and it seems like it is a genetic thing, 'cause it affects some people and it doesn't affect others.
Um, I was talking to Clay Millican, he's a Top Fuel driver. Yeah. He has it just as bad as I do. Um, when I quit, Jack Beckman hit me up and I, I asked him, he's a Funny Car driver. Yeah. And he's like, "Oh, no, I don't have that at all." How does that happen? Yeah. Where these two guys are in the same exact job, working around nitro engines all the time, which are the loudest cars- Oh, yeah
on earth. One of them has the tinnitus like I do, the other doesn't. But the strange thing is my problem working as a National Hot Rod Association drag racing pit reporter was not as much the cars, it was the communication in the ears. Right. 'Cause you have all these, like, in-ear- Right ... comms and things.
They're [00:46:00] custom-molded silicon earplugs that go in that have a microphone in them. And, and for those who are unaware in the audience about how this works, you'll end up having sometimes as many as three directors talking in your ears. Usually just one, but sometimes when we would go what they call live live, like actually from my lips to the world- Mm-hmm
you would have, uh, your field producer and the, and the show producer, and also the overall overarching, like, voice of God producer- Right ... all telling you what to do in your ear while you're talking to someone. And the thing is, because of my hearing, I had to turn it up so loud to be able to hear them- That, uh, you would hear just a tone in your ears all day long, sometimes straight up static, occasionally feedback, and, uh, it just got to the point where I would leave races and my ears would be worse, and I'd think, "It'll be better tomorrow," and it never got better.
And I love the job. I wanna still be doing it. I love the whole community, but I [00:47:00] ultimately had to pick my long-term hearing. Yeah, no, I, I, I understand that. Sorry, man. That's... I- like I said, I've had it for spells, but it's n- I can't imagine it being there all the time. Yep, 100%. Yeah, I... There's moments where I'll just be doing something, and all of a sudden it just pops in.
Is that... Did it start for you sporadically, or did... Was it- Yeah ... kind of just dull, and the volume kept raising on it? Same as you. Oh, great. Probably the Ram- the Ramones are a huge part of it. Yeah. Um, I remember going to the Palladium in Hollywood and standing right next to some speakers at the edge of the stage.
Same thing, I remember at a Dokken show. And I actually liked the feeling of my eardrum sort of- Oh, yeah ... like losing control. Yeah. You know, and buzzing. And the next day you're, like, at school or work- And- ... and everything's just kind of, like, foggy. You sound like you're underwater. Yeah. Exactly. I did that a lot.
And then, of course, drag racing, dyno testing, land speed racing my entire life, and so I don't remember not having it, it's just that it's gotten worse and [00:48:00] worse and worse. Yeah, it's definitely something that, um, now as I, I have a, you know, a son, like I'm constantly putting ear protection on him- Yeah
because I realize what's happened to me. Yeah. He's obviously around me working on cars. I let him use tools and all these things, and it's like, it's like he's learned, like he goes to pick something up, and he's like, "Ear protection first." And I was like, "Good," 'cause when I was a kid, it wasn't cool to have ear protection.
It's not. But- And that's a big part of my problem is like, oh, you're not a dude if you can't just take it Yeah ... but the other thing I've noticed is the worse it gets, the easier it is to get worse. Like the NHRA thing, the other reporters deal with it all the time. It's no problem for them. It's not, you know- Right
a fault of the equipment. It's that I have a problem, and even a couple loud smacks on a hammer, they sound so much sharper and more piercing to me now than they used to. Hmm. So yeah, I wear earplugs a lot. Yeah. The, uh... Well, I'm sorry that, that... I know that was a big, you were really excited about doing all of that, so yeah.
Yep. Um, all right, let's take another quick break, and we'll c- we'll come back to it 'cause I [00:49:00] wanna talk music a little bit. If your favorite pair of safety glasses prevented a catastrophic eyeball loss, those things deserve their place in the trophy cabinet. But if you just got a bad scratch right in your line of sight, bummer, and Heat Wave Visual knows this.
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[00:50:00] Okay, I don't exactly belong to the third camp, but, uh, I've dabbled. I've committed the ultimate no-no, cracked a lug free with a torque wrench, but I swear that life is behind me now that I've got a torque lock torque wrench from Wera. Go get yourself one, weratools.com. Have you ever bought a set of coilovers just to lower your car for looks?
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You share a lot about kind of when you [00:51:00] were younger and the music you like. W- give me your top five bands. Oh, man. But let's do top five bands for a road trip. They're all so embarrassing. That's okay. Like, it's a road trip. You and I are... We're, like, in the middle of nowhere Kansas, and I hand you over, you know, the aux cable, right?
W- you know, because we're listening to it on a cassette tape that's popped into the deck, and we, we got, you know, that runs out to the aux cable. What are you playing off your phone? No one wants my playlist. I, I'm so bogged back into the '80s. The... If I, if we're really in that circumstance, I would- ... temper my playlist to be tolerable at all.
I want... No, I... Okay, what if you're in the car by yourself? What's, what's the you're driving by yourself playlist versus friends? Oh, man. So if I was with you, I would probably go with, like, you know, your standard AC/DC and Boston and- Right ... whatever. Yeah. A- as much as I didn't love it back at the time, I'm now kind of into, like, Styx and Journey and- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
major arena bands like that. But, you know, [00:52:00] I grew up with Ratt and Mötley Crüe Well, that's what I love And Warrant, and, you know, Warrant is, like, the most embarrassing band to admit that you like, but they're actually really good. Yeah. They actually were. Yeah. Um, but, like, Poison was not a thing for me.
They probably have two or three songs. Yeah. I cannot listen to a note of Def Leppard. Oh, really? Cannot do it. Oh, interesting. Okay. Cannot. Yeah. Not even Photograph? Okay. Jamie Lane from Warrant does a version of Photograph that I can listen to. Oh, okay. But for some reason I cannot do Def Leppard. Oh, okay.
Yeah. So I, I, I'm assuming you're probably about my uncle's age, and my uncle was this massive influence. He was a teenager when I was born, and he brought, like, my first album or record actually, actually was a 45, was Mötley Crüe Smoke in the Boys Room. Okay. And I just li- I mean, I was probably, like, five at the time when he gave me that.
And then he bought me, you know, a bunch of, a bunch of Crüe, [00:53:00] Zeppelin, right? And I, so and I, and I, I ended up inheriting his vinyl collection because tape was out and tape was cool, so he replaced everything on tape and gave me his vinyl collection. So I just had all of this music from sort of, you know, '70s era, early '80s, that, that he loved, and that really shaped, like, my music listening as a- Yeah
kid. So I'm, you know, I'm, you know, eight years old and my first concert is, uh, Whitesnake and Mötley Crüe. Okay. And then, like, Guns N' Roses later on when the, when Ap- when the Appetite album came out. Oh, dude. And like, you know, and I was, like, nine when that came out. I- And my uncle was, like, ripping out the, you know, the, the picture inside that, you know, a, a nine-year-old shouldn't see, and then putting the tape back together and giving it to me for Christmas and stuff like that.
Yeah. And absolutely, like, you know, created an ear for me for music at, like, a really young age. So it sounds like most of the stuff you listen to is probably the same stuff I would hear on a road trip with him- Okay ... or I'd already listened to, so. I remember the moment I first heard Guns N' [00:54:00] Roses, and one of my friends told me- We saw them at the clubs.
You don't remember that? I was like, "No, at the clubs, you're carousing. I'm not paying attention- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... to the noise on stage." Yeah. But I remember hearing the album just being like, "This is unbelievable." Yeah. It was so different. They get sort of ganged into hair metal, but it was different. No, they're, they're something special.
Yeah. I read, um, it was maybe 20-year anniversary of Appetite, uh, maybe 25, I don't remember, and the Rolling St- and Rolling Stone magazine did, like, a whole issue on Guns N' Roses. And there was this article about, um, they were renting Cecil DeMille's house to record the album, and, uh, they completely destroyed the house.
Like, they had ripped all the toilets out of the house. They were, like, shitting in buckets in corners. Like, every wall was smashed, and there was one room with the door locked, and they op- you know, and they, when the, the band eventually gets, like, evicted from the building, and they go in to clean up, and the property manager tells this story that [00:55:00] they open the room, and it was Axl's room, and, like, his, like, notebook is on the dresser.
Next to it is a pen, like, perfectly knolled. Yeah. And, like, the bed is made. Wow. And it was this weird, like, you know, look into, like, his brain. Yeah. 'Cause everybody else is, like, full rock and roll, and, like, you walk into this, like, almost, like, OCD, sterile room that was his bedroom. And I always think about, like, how that rela- like, relationship was- Wow
'cause that was when they were making the first album. I saw him at a party one time, excessively wasted on I don't even know what. Yeah. And he ended up getting in a fight with one of my friends over, like, his girlfriend or something. I don't remember the details- Mm-hmm ... of it, but I remember at the time going, "This guy's unhinged."
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, as a k- as a kid, he was one of my, like, early idols. Like, I remember going to, going somewhere as Halloween as him, you know, and showing up, like, with no shirt on wherever- Yeah ... as, like, a 10-year-old kid trying to be, trying to be Axl Rose. But I mean, I would argue it's one of the greatest albums of all time.
Oh, yeah. Like, it is front to back. [00:56:00] That leads up into... Like, it is a, something you can listen to from front to back. There's no skips. Um, you mentioned the artwork you weren't allowed to see as a kid. Yes. Did you know that that first Appetite for Destruction cover that was revoked because of reasons- Yeah
um, it was done by Robert Williams, who was a guy who worked for Big Daddy Ed Roth- Oh, I didn't know that ... designing, like, Rat Fink shirts way back in the day. I mean, thinking about the style, it makes sense, but I didn't- Yeah ... I didn't realize the connection there. Yeah. And he became a car designer and did cartoon books, was, you know, a, what...
I think he invented the term lowbrow art. Oh. And he's still around. He and his wife are, you know, hangers-on in the hot rod scene. Oh, very cool. Yeah. Yep. The whole, like, world of hot rod art is something that I, I hope doesn't go missing to the next generation because it's such a cool era of it. And obviously, we had John Chase at Hoonigan, who was, who absolutely studied that world.
Yep. And we, we tried to bring As much of it as we could and kinda keep it alive. And I, I love that, and, like, [00:57:00] sign painting, like, there's such an era of that cool stuff from '60s, '70s, and even, you know, '80s, that I feel like is, kinda gets forgotten. And it's like I went out of the way to, you know, have this guy, um, you know, sign paint my Nova.
His name was Voodoo, and, uh, he was, like, almost 80 years old when he painted the car, and he showed up, uh, dressed as a woman. Yeah. Just showed up and was like- Go for it ... "Hey, I wanna come." I was like, "Cool, dude." Like, and he was like, he did it, you know, and then pulled out his little paint and his little one shot and did it, and I was like, it's such a cool thing that unfortunately is getting lost because, like, there's just not a lot of people doing it anymore.
So it's like- Yeah ... those are just those cool arts that, like, for me always surrounded, surrounded culture. Do you ever look at a Ford Raptor and think the logo looks like an '80s metal band? Oh, yeah. It totally does. I never thought about it until you said it right now- It- ... but if you put, like, a little chrome effect on that- Exactly
with, like, pyro behind it- Uh-huh ... and you're like, "We're going to see Raptor tonight." Uh-huh. Wow, that is really metal. Yeah, I [00:58:00] completely, completely forgot about that. Speaking of metal and magazines, did you grow up reading, like, any of the metal magazines? Nah. No? I, as a kid, I remember, like, what was... I can't even remember any of the names of them now, but I, like, when I was- But Rang Well, Kerrang!
was more of the punk rock kind of esque. It was, like, metal and punk-y. Yeah Right? But there was, like, the more glam ones. Oh, I'm blanking on, on the names of any of them now, but I used to, I used to buy them all as a kid. Yeah. That and Radio Controlled Car Action is- Yeah ... what got me into wanting to make magazines.
Probably my first magazine was BMXA, BMX Action. I forget that you're also a BMX guy. Well, I was way back then. I, I- We, we all were. We all- Yeah ... now we have these knees that don't have, like, you know, meniscuses anymore. Well, I mean, I haven't been since I was 15. Yeah. I already owned my first car, and my bike got stolen from out front of the Licorice Pizza store.
And I was like, "Oh, well. I'll, I'll just drive my car." What kind of bike did you have? A Mongoose. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was- Yep ... that was the, that was the must. Yeah. I, uh, I always wanted a Mongoose California, but, uh, ended up getting a d- a Dino was my first [00:59:00] bike, and then eventually a PK Ripper, so. Ah, PK Ripper.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was the... I still have it. It's- Oh, really? ... somewhere in one of these cabinets behind us. Yeah. I always wanted a Redline. It got stolen, and I got it back, so. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, so. I just thought Redline was the cool one. Redline, oh, Redline cranks were also really, really- Yeah ... really, really cool when we were younger.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. BMX, for me it was BMX Plus was sort of- Okay ... more my generation. And then, uh, and then after that it was Ride BMX, were like, were, were, were, were the two in, in that era. Um, sw- switching topics a bit, um, Drag Week, it's kinda your baby, right? You, you... What, what gave you the idea to sort of bring that together?
And, and explain what it is for those who, who maybe don't know it. So Drag Week is an event that takes, I don't know, 400 cars and drives them from drag strip to drag strip, five stops over a week, and the winner in each class is the car with the lowest average ET. So it's not even drag racing, it's time trials.
Mm-hmm. So you show up at the track, you run as quick as you possibly can, you hand in your ET slip. At the end of the week we add them [01:00:00] all up, divide by however many race days we had, usually five, and the low ET is the winner. Um, I came up with this because I had been involved from the very beginning in Hot Rod Magazine's Fastest Street Car Shootout that happened in Memphis in 1992, and that was one of those events where, and I was brand new, so I'd had little to do with it, but we as a collective staff knew as soon as we did it that we had hit a nerve, because the grandstands were packed.
It was nuts. It was the whole return of street racers to the track. It, it was a really big deal, and it sort of- lost the plot as the years went on and it became more corporate and the, and the company realized, "Oh, we've got something here." And then it resurfaced as True Street, which was a deal that Jonnie Hunkins and another guy- Yeah
invented, which was, uh, a weekend event where you just go out and drive a 40-mile loop and [01:01:00] come back and then run three passes, and you average those, and that's the winner. And then when I came back to Hot Rod in 2001 as, uh, the editor, I started the Pump Gas Drags- Yeah ... which was a deal at Comp Cams. We filled the cars up with Rocket Brand, I think it was 100 octane fuel, and drove them to the track and ran them three times.
So you see, it's like a constant progression of who has the fastest street car in America, asking that question and answering it in different ways. And finally, at Hot Rod, I sat there and I said, "The only way people are ever gonna stop complaining about this and saying, 'Those aren't really street cars,' is if we just drive them 1,000 miles."
Yep. And so I stole the idea from One Lap of America. I was gonna ask, was One Lap, was Brock's One Lap an inspiration for you? 100%. Okay. 100%. Um, and- And for those listening, real quick, Brock Yates did a thing, One Lap of America, after the success of Cannonball. He made a more legal version of it where you would drive, uh, track to track and put [01:02:00] down lap times at a track and then, and then move to the next one.
I did it in 2006 with Ken Block. It was a lot of fun. I probably did it right around that time. When did Finnegan and I do it? Nah, it must have been, like, '15 or something- Mm ... like that. But, uh, yeah, stole the idea from that and put together Drag Week, and it's been going on for now 22 years, and it has been knocked off and- I was gonna say, it's also-
spawned a ton of other var- variations of it. In multiple continents. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's all over the place, and that's one of those things where I, I... Okay, I invented that week, but the thing that really made it popular was the attitude of the participants. Mm-hmm. The way that they realized what this was.
It wasn't a bloodthirsty competition. There's never been any money in it. Yeah. It's all for the respect of your peers and for fun, and they all help each other out, and it developed this aesthetic of these crazy 3,000-horsepower cars hauling trailers on the highway. And so it's, the participants turned it into what it has become.
I mean, it's such a cool [01:03:00] image to see just a, you know, six- or seven-second car driving with a trailer on the highway- Yeah ... you know, with the slicks in the back. Like, it's such a, it, I... Like, it's so iconic-looking, um, and I, I think was, in my opinion, I think it rebirthed or brought back drag racing to a huge group of people.
Well- 'Cause to me, I, I, I, drag racing felt like it had kind of fallen off a bit. People weren't paying as much attention, and then Drag Week all of a sudden became this thing that everyone was paying attention to. And it's really great for people who aren't drag racers, air quotes, because you don't have to cut a reaction time.
You don't have to beat the guy in the other lane. Mm-hmm. Anybody can participate with virtually any kind of car and be successful, and they don't have to do it in a series to win a championship. Yeah. They spend a week, and they're done. But yes, I think that brought back a whole lot of eyes on drag racing.
Nowhere near as much as Street Outlaws, and I think that has all added up. Yeah. I mean, NHRA is selling out, [01:04:00] you know, stadiums, for lack of a better word- Yeah ... multiple times per year all over the country. I mean, you've watched sort of the ebb and flow of drag racing. What do you think its current health is compared to different times in your career?
Well, there's h- this whole freakish thing that's going on with the IHRA right now. I don't know if you've followed that- No ... at all. There's this guy, Darrell Cuttle, who decided that he was going to be the king of motorsports, and he bought International Hot Rod Association- Mm-hmm ... and also a powerboat racing series and a bunch of circle track series.
He was just trying to be the guy. Bought a whole bunch of tracks and everything, and basically stated, "I'm here to destroy the NHRA. We're gonna make this happen." Currently, they appear to be in free fall. They're laying off a lot of people. They're canceling a whole lot of their- Yeah ... their events. And- It's almost a shame because it would've been good, I think, for the NHRA to have the [01:05:00] IHRA sort of nipping at their heels.
It would've given a place for nitro racers to sort of practice and have lower buck teams that could compete and then step into the big show at NHRA. So I think it's a bummer that it appears to be, I don't know, I, I don't know exactly what's going on with it. I've only followed it in social media, but it appears to be on the downslide.
But on the NHRA side of things, as I said, they are selling out. They're doing huge. They have, like, the Pro Stock car counts are big. The nitro car counts unfortunately are often, like, right at 16, and you'd love to see, like, 20 so there's people who don't qualify. But nonetheless, it's a full show for the crowd, and they're eating it up, and they're now going 345 miles an hour.
Sean Langdon, 345. Yeah. That's crazy. Do you find that the top and fastest cars still drive the most excitement at NHRA, or is there sort of a [01:06:00] mix in classes now? Meaning, like- Oh, the nitro cars are definitely- Yeah ... the top. Yeah, yeah, that's- There's no question about that. Yeah. And there's a lot of personalities involved.
Um, Maddie Gordon is 21 years old, and she is awesomely legit. She came out of her, uh, family alcohol funny car team. She crewed on the thing all throughout her teenage years. She drove the thing for a couple years. She's now driving for Ron Capps, who is a- Mm ... legacy funny car driver in a Top Fuel funny car, and she's created what w- we call Maddie Mania- Mm
because the audience is going absolutely nuts for her. And it's because, you know, she's an attractive, younger woman, but it's really because she's so legit, usually her hands are dirty, and she's got this huge personality, and I think that is really... I'm- not just her, but other people like that. Yep. Jordan Vandergriff is another younger guy who has come in [01:07:00] and just taken funny car by storm.
He's number two in points right now. Super attractive guy, super media savvy guy, uh, super, super nice guy, and absolutely living his dream, and so I think that helps the audience get engaged. It's good to see, and I think for, you know, when David Kennedy first left Hot Rod and went over to NHRA, obviously, you know, he talked to us a lot at Hoonigan and said, you know, you know, when I was there, "Hey, what can, you know, can you help us with this?
Can you help us with that?" And I think the, at the time, it was a lack of media savvy, right? And we obviously worked with people like Leah and tried to help them, you know, talk more to a different audience. And NHRA, I think, had a very, like, traditional mindset of, like, well, the magazines come here, the media comes here, we have television, that's all we need.
And now it's like, no, unfortunately, you have to become your own brand and, and tell your own story- Yep ... um, and watch it all grow. But I, I also think, you know, you, Street Outlaws definitely, those guys brought a huge thing. But I also think for a lot of people, especially in the YouTube space, like, watching [01:08:00] Cleetus go and compete and try to, like, you know, get to where he did with Leroy was this story that a lot of people maybe didn't sign up for, but it, it brought them in, it got them more excited.
And then obviously, all, I think, the, a lot of the stars that came out of Drag Week, you know, created their own sort of followings. Obviously, there's Sick Week now. It's like there's these things that developed out of it that all of the, the cars became characters, but also the people around it. And I, I have to admit, if you would've asked me, you know, 15 years ago what I thought the health of drag racing would be moving forward, I would not have voted, I would not have been the one to bet on it continuing to grow, right?
Yeah. And then even, you know, when I was at Hoonigan, This vs That became one of the biggest shows we had. Yeah. It just did. I mean, it, and it might not have been what the core audience wanted to see, but you couldn't, you couldn't argue the views. It was, like, on average doing a million views an episode, and we could shoot six of them in a day.
Uh-huh. Yeah. You know? It's genius. Yeah, yeah. And it worked, that, that worked really well, you know? So, um, it's, it's great to see that. But w- I think it's difficult to talk about [01:09:00] drag racing and not also talk about the fact that we're losing all our tracks. How do you think that's affecting the sport? Um, I think that's overstated.
Okay. Um, a lot of people my age would say, "Oh, drag racing's not what it used to be. There was a drag strip on every corner." There's actually more drag strips in the country right now than there were in, I don't know, pick your year, 1975. Oh, really? Yeah. Huh. Um, and there are new ones opening that you don't hear about because they're a local eighth-mile track- Okay
so that's not headline news for you. It's probably more that we're just losing them in the cities. Yes. It's like Los Angeles has obviously lost- Yes ... a ton. And this IHRA deal, it remains to be seen what's gonna happen with all the tracks that they purchased. Um, some of them will probably fold, but there are places like Memphis which had folded anyway.
Mm-hmm. You know, they bought the place, raised the tower. They were gonna make a big facility. Obviously, that's not happening now, so that track's probably gone. Mm-hmm. And those are big name tracks, but there's a lot of smaller ones going together. [01:10:00] Um, NHRA has new events this year at new tracks they haven't been at before, like Maryland, uh, Rockingham's coming up.
Um, so I think that's gonna be interesting, too. When they go into these smaller tracks, they just overwhelm the place, and then it just looks like a, a madhouse- Right ... 'cause there's so many people there. Um, to kind of go back to the point you're making of, like, how fast the cars are now, uh, I had JR Hildebrand...
Do you know JR by any chance? Mm-hmm. He's a IndyCar driver, and he has a lot of opinions on kind of, like, where motorsports needs to go and, and how we change things, and one of the conversations we got into was at a certain point, the, the quest for going faster was no longer relatable to the audience in Indy, right?
Like, the difference between 220 versus 230 really wasn't making a difference, but it was actually creating it to be such a m- uh, so much more of a dangerous sport for the driver, right? Do you think, I mean, obviously I am well aware of, you know, what happened at Englishtown a while back [01:11:00] and why things were moved to 1,000 foot.
Like, do you think that the, the speed will continue to raise? Is that still a major draw for drag racing 'cause it's such a different type of racing than Indy? W- wh- where do you think we go in terms of that? Well, w- w- two years ago, the record was 339 miles an hour. Yeah. And then all of a sudden last year, it went, like, 340, 341, uh, straight to 343, and then Sean 345, and that's created a lot of buzz.
We've also seen the first 300 mile an hour run to the eighth mile. Yeah, Mike Salinas- ... was the first guy to do that. That's crazy- Yeah ... to think about, thinking about how small, like, just doing that at Irwindale. Yes, Irwindale, 300 miles an hour. That's a great- And then lane change. Right, yeah, at Irwindale. At the end.
Yeah. No, you don't do that. Not anymore, but yeah. You run the left one. Yeah. Um, e- so that has all been headline news, and I think it's brought a whole lot of buzz, and I think people are still really [01:12:00] into it. The problem is now the only, the next barrier is 350, you know? And how far are we from that? Well, I didn't think we'd pick up five miles an hour in a year, which is what we've done.
Incredible. Yeah. And there's a lot of fans who say, "Oh, they're gonna change the rules. They're gonna shut that down. Oh, the tires are gonna explode." Well, they haven't changed the rules and slowed that down yet, and Goodyear's not concerned about what's happening right now, so. I don't know, maybe they keep going.
As far as whether that is a driver of people showing up, yeah, I think that it is, which is annoying to a lot of racers. You know, I have heard, um, like Steve Torrence is a Top Fuel driver who has ranted about this. You know, he's like, "I don't know why we keep yelling about mile an hour. That doesn't win a race here.
Mile an hour means nothing." Who gets there first, and therefore ET, is what really matters in drag racing, but the headlines come from the mile an hour. Yeah, I mean, it's like when baseball went through the home run era, right? Mm-hmm. Where it was like that [01:13:00] surged, you know, whatever, in late '90s, Barry Bonds and all that.
It's like they were, the, the viewership was through the roof. Granted, in the end we all found out they were all doing steroids. But- The, the viewership was through the roof- Yeah ... because it was something that normal, non-inside baseball, no pun intended, people could understand. Yeah. You're like, "What, it's going how fast?"
Uh-huh. Right? You know. I mean, I- it's so funny, when I, I would, I worked in rally racing, and people would be like, "How fast do the cars go?" I'm like- Eh ... "They only do, like, 100." Not this. Like, like it's literally geared to 120 because that's not where the speed is, and you could see people's, like, just frown- Yeah
'cause they want you to say 200 miles an hour, 'cause- I know ... big numbers, big numbers mean a lot, so. But you know what? It's the same thing where I was comparing myself to Westen Champlin. You know- Yeah ... he's the big mile an hour, and I'm just the guy chugging along. Yeah. People are attracted to the The big thing Oh, yeah
the wow Yeah ... the headline. Eh, you know, Westen has come up a couple times. I need to have him on the show next when he's out here, but Westen's one of those guys who, and I don't know if it was the same for you, where I was [01:14:00] unaware of him, and then all of a sudden he was massive. Like, I saw him, uh, I, I think when he built the Cummins Mustang.
Yeah. I was like, "Oh, that's cool," and I was, like, kind of aware of him. And then, like, I blinked and he was doing a million views. Oh- And I was like, oh- ... many more than that, yeah. Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, it was, it felt like it was, like, I don't, I don't want to call him an overnight success, 'cause I, I know he put a lot of years into getting there, but he boomed, and then all of a sudden became one of the biggest people.
And then I met him in person, and I'm like, okay, I get it. Like, he just has this, like, he is ... What you were talking about before- He's that guy ... he's that character. He's a lunatic. He, he's a lunatic. He's really lovable. Like, he just fits all the things. He's funny and y- he, he has all those elements to him.
And he- But also way smarter than you think. Way smarter than you think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, like, that's his whole, like, you know, redneck science kind of thing. Yep. Yeah. Um, are you ... Do you watch other stuff on YouTube? Or- Zero. Yeah, I figured. Yeah. I'm, I'm ... I, I just- I, I've never watched TV.
I've never had cable. When I was doing Roadkill, I never- Really? I've never seen the episodes of Fast N' Loud that I was on. I, uh- You didn't miss [01:15:00] much. No, I, I, I'm, I'm disappointed to hear that you sat through it. I think I watched it just because I was rooting for you guys at that point, so ... And I love Aaron Kaufman over there, but it was easy to root
I mean, I ... Richard makes himself someone easy to root against, so- I guess so ... it's kind of his, it's kind of his character. So for you, you don't really even pay much attention to anything out of that? I, no. M- I have scanned a few things just so I'm aware of what they are. Yeah. But as far as sitting down for fun, watching it- Yeah
on my phone or TV, no, literally nothing. Yeah. I'm too busy. Yeah, no, I- Yeah ... I was that way the entire time I was working with Hoonigan. Now, with, I'm doing the podcast, I have to kind of, like, figure out, like, who I want to go talk to. Yeah. And I'm kind of running through the Rolodex of all the people I knew and worked with through the years, guys like yourself.
Um, and obviously 'cause I do it here in the house, uh, they need to be California or traveling through. And so I'm occasionally like, "Who's this person? Who's the, who's this person?" Yeah. Like, oh, like, who's the next this? So I'm, [01:16:00] I'm paying a little bit more attention now, but I, I don't know. When I was in it, I really didn't even want to be influenced by other people's stuff.
So I just wanted to kind of just do what, what I was doing and just watch, watch kind of that ty- that type of stuff, so yeah. Yep. One of the things that I think, you know, we all sort of take for granted is- Like, how much access this life has gotten us, both as journalists, and then, like, later on as whatever we wanna call ourselves, creators in the space.
Um, I know for you, like, you've gotten to do a bunch of really cool stuff. Um, and I think when, uh, we, we were talking one time, it was right before you were doing some of the stuff with Bonneville. Like, is that one of your, like, high watermark events, is going 200 mile an hour club and, and doing all of that?
Yeah, I think that Bonneville personally was the most rewarding thing for me in my time at Hot Rod, because it tied together, you know, the origins of the hobby and the legacy of the magazine, which helped get hot rods to [01:17:00] Bonneville to begin with in 1949. And it was an achievable goal in motor sports that didn't require participating in a series.
And so yeah, getting in the 200 mile an hour club there, which just to clarify for the audience, because I always deal with this, people think you just show up, and if you drive 200 miles an hour, well, you're in the 200 mile an hour club. Actually, what you need to do is break an existing record over 200 miles an hour, and that new record needs to meet the 200 mile an hour club minimum.
Mm. What that means is, let's say you're running double A blown fuel streamliner, in other words, like the most radical vehicle on the salt. You go set a record at 201. The, the club looks at that and says, "Okay, that's cute, but a car like that should be able to go 280, and so that's our minimum. You, you set a record over 280, then you're in the club."
And people don't understand that, and they think it's completely bogus, but it's a way [01:18:00] to prevent the thing... What happens is a new class is created, somebody can go bump the thing to, you know, 200 and a half miles an hour, and he gets in the club. Then he hands the keys to his buddy, and that guy goes 201, and then the next buddy goes 202.
It sort of prevents that. It means you need to set a legitimate record. Don't be a leaker. Anyway, I think I set I don't know, 10 or a dozen records at Bonneville in various different classes, but also did it at five other venues. Okay. And, and, uh, El Mirage Dry Lake is one of them. Yep. Have you been up to El Mirage?
Yep. You must have for shoots. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. One of the first trips, uh, one I did to California was, um, well, I'd built a car for Ken Block way before anyone knew who Ken Block was, and we brought it to El Mirage to shoot it, and it was, like, a slammed CLS, and I went in through the other entrance that's, like, really rough-
and ended up getting the car high-sided . And then I got there, and someone's like, "You know there's a smooth way out on the other side." I'm like, "Oh, all right, I came through [01:19:00] the wrong entrance." Yeah. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's definitely a... If you've never been to a dry lake bed, it is kind of an amazing, sort of otherworldly experience to stand there, especially- Yeah
when it's empty. It's amazing that guys have gone 300 miles an hour there, and it's- Oh, yeah ... a mile and thirds, a mile and a third standing start on dirt. It's hard-pack silt. What originally attracted you to, to that? To the land speed racing? Yeah. Um, starting at Hot Rod Magazine, Gray Baskerville was a guy who was on staff there who had been there for 25 years at the time that I started, and he was a wild character, super well-known and beloved in the hot rodding whole scene, and he was just an institution at Bonneville and El Mirage.
And so he sort of took me under his wing and dragged me along. So from my very earliest days in that career, I was saturated with, you know, "This is cool. This is our legacy. This is where it all began. You need to be into this," [01:20:00] and I was. Yeah. Um, do you, did... I- I assume you don't just show up and, you know, just jump in a 200 mile an hour car, so you, you work your way sort of up to it.
What was sort of the first speed kind of barrier and thing that you did when you went there? Um, it's always been important to me to be the guy who actually set up the combo, and, uh, with the exception of, I think, two records, I've assembled my own engines for it. Um, I was in partnership with Keith and Tanya Tuerk, who ran the car, and I ran the engine.
Um, the earliest thing that I did, I think- Uh, there was a guy who had a former NASCAR stock car- Mm-hmm ... who had converted it for, uh, Bonneville, and there really is no class for that up there. The completely fabricated fiberglass body- Mm ... super aerodynamic thing. There's, oddly enough, no class for it. But we ran and went time only, and I think I went 210 or something.
Mm. I drove a Roadster 180-something a couple [01:21:00] times. Uh, I drove that same Roadster in some standing mile paved events. And then 2004 is when I just decided, I need to do this. I wanna do it the right way. Mm. And, uh, so I... This is the one engine I didn't assemble myself. I, I had my guys at DoGoods Racing Engines put together a 406 small block, put a supercharger on the thing, went out there, got in the club on my first attempt at Bonneville, and this is how much it means to you.
You remember the number. 241.602 miles an hour- ... was my record in 2004 when I did that. Yeah, I, I find it very interesting to me, 'cause I have to say, it's one of the sports that I find a lot of respect for, but I don't personally find the urge to go drive. Yeah. Because it's, it's one of those things where the, uh, return on investment is questionable.
Oh, zero. Like, a lot can go very wrong. Yes. And it also doesn't have the same feeling of speed that other things do, so it, it's a huge accomplishment. But I, I think as I've got... When I was younger, I was more into the idea [01:22:00] of wanting to go do it one day, and I really wanted to go do it, like, in a traditional hot rod.
And, you know, y- you're, you're not going that fast, but it's still, like, the fun of being out on the salt, like, in a traditional. Yeah. Um, but then as I get older, I'm like, do I really wanna be doing 100 miles plus in a vehicle that was, like, built 100 years ago, and all, like, metal that's just been sitting here forever, you know?
So- That did slow me down. Yeah. And actually, I'll correct myself. I've bragged that I remembered the number. It was actually 243.015. My fastest mile an hour- Oh, okay ... was 261.602- Yeah ... and that was in a 1981 Camaro. Mm. And ultimately, you do have to sit there and go, "Do I need to go 300 miles an hour in a Camaro?"
I mean, 280 was attainable. I was only running the thing to the fourth out of five miles. Yeah. And I knew a couple guys who had died there, and I've seen some gruesome accidents there. Yeah. So yeah, you do ask yourself, is this really worth it for no reward other than a plaque? Yeah. Um, do you still s- how do you see the health of that space these days?
Not as good as I [01:23:00] would like it to be. Yeah. Yeah. I think at the time I was doing it, it was- on a resurgence because of the World's Fastest Indian movie. Yeah, yeah. There was actually spectators out there, and I had been covering it in the magazine quite a bit, and at the time, that was a compelling thing for people.
And we were in the middle of that boom of sort of '50s rockabilly cars- Yeah ... that happened in the early 2000s, and so that was attracting people there. So I think we saw a probably false peak as a result of all of those things, and it's now sought probably what its natural level would have been. But there are younger people coming into it.
I see them, um, as volunteers and things. Yeah. And I think, "Okay, this will continue as long as the BLM allows it." Yeah, it seemed like, um, Speed Week almost became sort of a cultural element, where a lot of people were just driving cool things out there- Totally ... to go spectate and be a part of it, and building, like, support vehicles to go out and push cars and [01:24:00] things like that as a fun part of it, instead of just the racers.
Yeah. I- it seems like that maybe is- has, has shrank a little bit from that point, yeah. And, you know, the OEs used to support it a lot. Mm-hmm. It used to be kind of a standard thing, where every six or seven years, an OE would decide, "We need one of our cars to get a record at Bonneville." Yeah. And they would go do it.
GM had a killer program. Um, and that's probably happening right now, but honestly, I'm not aware of it. I mean, it's an extremely American sport. When you think, like, that and Pikes Peak are two things that are very uniquely us because of the terrain of America- Yeah ... that, like, other people have a hard time creating something similar 'cause they don't have that.
And that, it's a shame to see that disappear 'cause it is a very, like, iconic American, you know, sport. I'm in the two club at Lake Gairdner, Australia. There is that too, yeah. Which is, like, many times- Yeah ... the size of Bonneville. Yeah. I mean, Australia's kind of, like... I, I love Australia. It's, like, a, it's like mini America with, like, different, uh, with, like, just slightly different social cultural elements to it.
I would say it's, like, [01:25:00] a good blend of Europe and America. Like- Yeah ... but I, I, I love Australia. You, you've spent a bit of time down there, yeah? Yeah. Uh, been there three times. Finnegan and I went for a road kill- Yeah ... once, and then I've been there twice for the land speed racing thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's so, it's funny because whenever anyone talks about how bad and how tight, uh, legislation is getting on being a car enthusiast here in the US, you look at Australia, and it's like it's- Oh, yeah
100 times worse, and they have some of the sickest cars. Yeah. But they can't drive 'em on the street. Like, that's... Or they do, but they all get, they all get into trouble. Speaking about that hot topic button, uh, what do you, what do you think about all the new laws that are making it, making us car enthusiasts into criminals?
Stuff, something you worry about, or something that you feel like we've been through before? It depends which one you're exactly talking about and whether it's conspiracy theory or a fact. Um, there's obviously a lot of conspiracy theory ones. Like, I, I'll bring one up 'cause I just read it the other day, that junkyards are saying [01:26:00] that they're being told- They're being caught on fire and stuff?
That, uh, yeah, they're being caught on fire, but also they're being told to dispose of engines over 15 years old. That's another conspiracy one. I, I don't think any of that's true. I'm th- unless you know otherwise, but I'm thinking a lot of the ... I'm thinking more of the ones of, like, obviously, you know, bigger crackdowns on, you know, on anything that's not carb.
And California's obviously a big one. The new, uh, sticky tire law that is, like, coming through. I mean, these are all things that obvious- Is that one a fact? I thought I had done some research. S- SEMA, I, I, I spoke to RJ, uh, de Wera the other week. SEMA Action Network is working on it. Like, it is clearly something that they're dealing with, so.
For the edi- edification of the audience, what we're talking about is a presumed law coming, I think, just in California- Yeah ... where the government realized that, wait a minute, OE tire manufacturers make tires differently for their, uh, mile per gallon tests, for their federal- Yes ... fuel efficiency tests. And you may not even be aware that [01:27:00] the, I don't know, name your brand tire, Pirelli tire, that you bought brand new on your car is different than the one that you buy at the tire store down the street.
And they're saying, "Well, you all need to go with the OE one," but the problem is all of the OE tires are gonna be radically expensive and not last as long. It- Have I nailed it? Yeah, you've n- Is that what this is? You, you've nailed it. And in my conversations with some people who work at tire companies, they said that they see this as a dealership, like, cash grab.
Right. Because now all of a sudden you're gonna have to go to the dealer to get tires until that whole thing's sort of figured out, right? Right. That that's gonna be the one place to buy those tires. But they also don't last as long. So now you have to make more tires. So you get a better mile per gallon, which is what the goal is for it, because it has a lower rolling resistance, but you're making more tires.
And I don't know if anyone's checked, but tires are not the most environmentally friendly thing to make. Standard government feel-good program- Yes ... where they look at the headline and go- Yeah ... "Well, why wouldn't we make them run the tires that have more fuel efficiency?" And they [01:28:00] don't- Yeah ... look at the trickle-down at all of what it takes to manufacture and deliver and change and dispose of more tires.
Yeah. I mean, I think everyone's big worry is that there'll be another cash for clunkers type thing that comes up. And I mean, you remember that. I mean, it was pretty sad to just watch, especially if you've gotten to look at the lists of cars that just- Yep ... got destroyed because- Yeah ... either someone didn't know what they had, or they were like, "Ah," they just were getting rid of it.
And these are the type of cars that you and I drool over when you- Yeah, you're like- When you see it in the back of- ... "Buick Grand National." Yeah. Yeah. There were some lost. I know. Which is wild. Which is wild to think about. Yeah. No, it, it's a conversation that a lot of younger, um, enthusiasts are all complaining that, you know, it's almost impossible to own a car now.
I'm always getting pulled over. There's always these problems. But in, you know, in talking to people who've been around longer, um, a lot of people are like, "I don't know. It's kind of like an ebb and flow." Like, there's crackdowns- Yeah ... and then it loosens. But- There's crackdowns, there's loosens. So... But California's pretty blatantly stated we don't want this garbage on the road.[01:29:00]
I mean- Is that odd to you though, considering that Southern California is the home of hot rodding and so much car culture? They don't care. Yeah. They don't care. Yeah. There's way too much payola going on here and there for that. I mean, I'll buy into that conspiracy theory, basically because it's, like, from Newsom's, Newsom's lips.
It's like- Yeah ... I'm not making it up. No. The guy actually wants to outlaw gasoline-powered cars, you know? Which is, which doesn't seem to be the way the, the big three are going. They're all like, "Oh, look, I guess we're bringing back gas engines," which is good to see. Well, it's, uh, been remarkable to see how, uh, capitalism solved the electrical car problem.
And, you know, I'm a guy who sells gasoline forever T-shirts. Yeah, yeah. I'm not a guy who says, "I want electric cars gone." No. I think you should have every right in the world- You should have a choice ... to buy what you wanna buy. Yeah. Um, personally, I think hybrids are a radically better solution, radically so.
You don't change all of our infrastructure, and changing that infrastructure on [01:30:00] its own is an environmental disaster. Mm-hmm. You know? You can impr- improve fuel efficiency, which is only gonna get better and better and better- Yep ... and have the same infrastructure. An automaker, I won't say who, they loaned me a car for, uh, for a long period of time, and it was an EV.
It was actually quite fun. Um, it was really great for driving around LA and I got to jump in the HOV lane by myself, which was great. Um, probably one of the, the- But they can't give you that perk forever. Yeah, no, they took it- They can't give you the tax cut forever ... well, they've taken it away. They've taken it away now.
Right. They took it, that's, it doesn't exist anymore 'cause everybody went and got an EV. But, um, and, and I enjoyed it. It was a utility item for me, right? It was a good daily driver, and most of my cars are unreliable. It was nice, and the air conditioning worked. Um, and then I tried to drive it to Las Vegas.
And I got to Baker with zero miles left and thought I was gonna have to push it into the pu- or not the pump, but the charging station, and then the charging station was broken. Oh. And I was on my way to SEMA, and it was 1:00 in the morning, and I had to sit on customer [01:31:00] service and have them reset it, and that's when I realized, like, the- we're just not- the, the infrastructure's not there yet for you to own an EV outside of a major city in the US.
Like, it just doesn't work. But if that was a hybrid, I would've been fine. Yeah. I would've been able to switch over to gas and finish the rest of my trip, and I think that we jumped, I think we jumped too quick to EV. Like, it'll probably eventually come. Batteries will get better. I just, I just got a RC car for my son, and I was, like, having to read how to use LiPo batteries 'cause I haven't played with RC cars since I was a kid.
And it's like you look at how crazy the tech is on all of that, and you're like, "Okay, this'll eventually, this will continue to perform," but there's a reason why Scout is selling more, you know, uh, harvester-related, uh, vehicles than not, because people want the hybrid engine. And, like, theirs is the other way around.
They have an engine that charges the battery. It's like whatever. Whichever way, I mean, I would rather have an engine, but like- Yeah ... but I think there's a reality that people are like, "Yeah, this just doesn't work." It doesn't work in America the way it does in Europe [01:32:00] because we're just a really big country- Well-
with a lot of space in between. And as enthusiasts, what we want is for people to go ahead and just drive whatever sort of enviro box they have. Yeah, yeah. What am I wearing? This shirt says, "Life's too short to drive a mobility blob" on the back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but we want to still have our enthusiast cars- Mm-hmm
and do what we wanna do. Unfortunately, that's an unrealistic proposition to most reasonable people. Yeah. So I, I understand that, but- The- ... I'm still gonna fight for it. Well, no, and I think, but I think as journalists, I think we both probably look at it and say the actual impact of the enthusiasts and the racing community on the whole thing is so small but is the number one targeted thing- Yes
because it's such a good headline- Right ... or talking point at a press conference or in the news. But if you actually look at how small the percentage is of that, right? And, and, you know, you look at other places like Japan where it's like you can have an enthusiast car, you just have to pay more [01:33:00] taxes for it.
Like, there's other ways around it to say, okay, how do you, you know, keep this going? And not that I wanna make it that only the rich can then afford enthusiast cars, but in California, they're, they're just creating a world of, like, you just can't own that anymore. Yeah. And you- it has to leave the state.
Disallowed. Which is insane. It's like, it's cr- it's just such a crazy thing to be like, "Wait, this thing- Yeah ... that I drive how often? Like, what's it really matter?" Well, the other thing that's coming up, this is the new conspiracy theory I saw- Oh, let, let's get into the conspiracy theories. That, that, that- I love hearing them
well, this is a take your pick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It might be real. So you know that they have gone to 15% ethanol in the gas- Mm-hmm ... instead of 10- Mm-hmm ... at your average pump. Mm. And so the theory is they're gonna keep creeping up more and more ethanol to the point where all of our old car fuel systems are destroyed.
And I can tell you, it's a fact that that stuff destroys the fuel systems. Oh, yeah. 100%. One of my- Have you ever left a car parked for, like, five years with ethanol in the tank? Only 30 of them. You know? Currently. And [01:34:00] that is a legitimate problem, but people are saying the government's doing that specifically to eliminate the cars that cannot handle that stuff.
Yeah. I mean, even on the diesel market, we're at 20% biodiesel, and I have a six liter, and straight from Ford it says not to run that stuff. Yeah. But I can't find regular diesel, too, anymore. So you're like, "Great." Like, that's, that's- Yeah ... that'll eventually be a problem, so. Vegetable oil. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
What are some other good conspiracy theories you're hearing right now? The junkyard fire- The junkyard one's interesting ... one comes up a lot. Can, can you layer, can you lay that one out for everybody? Well, there just appears to be a massive boom in the number of junkyards that are completely burning to the ground, and I don't know what the specific numbers are.
The thing I always ask myself, and I, you know, as much as I would love to dive into the conspiracy theory- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... I realize, hold on, I need to put some of my own research into it before I really- Yeah ... go deep on this. Um, I ask myself, is it really that more junkyards are burning, or is it that it's a topic and so the news is reporting it more often?[01:35:00]
Because- And the algorithm's feeding it to you because- Right ... you clicked on a few of them. Because seven years ago, if a junkyard burned down in Wyoming, would you have ever heard about it? No. No. So I do ask myself, is it that? It probably isn't, because there's a lot of junkyards burning to the ground, and the theory is that the government is figuring out how to burn them so that we eliminate repair parts for older cars so that older cars will have to leave the road.
The same concept of the, the thing with governments being told to destroy any engine more than 15 years old. Right. Which I don't know if that's true at all. So the other part that I've heard that that is connected to, um, the conspiracy theory side of it, is that the reason to get rid of all the old cars is because all the new cars have, will basically allow you to control the vehicle, right?
They all have ODA in it, so it allows you to shut down, you know, any of the steering, avoid, accident avoiding stuff- Right ... would technically allow authorities to turn your vehicle off, [01:36:00] right? Well- Which basically gives the government control of your vehicle. OnStar came out in 1997. Yeah. They've been able to shut your vehicle off remotely- Mm-hmm
or open your doors remotely since then. So it's, it's- So start buying pre-1996 cars, guys. Right. Yeah, which then the government wants off the road, if you believe all the conspiracy theories. I'm trying to, like, always give the disclaimer- No, no, let, let's just- ... because I don't wanna be a tin hat guy. I'm not saying they have.
But- These, this is, for journalistic's side, we're just giving you the listings of what people are saying right now. But the thing about the cameras on the dash looking at you and your car decides whether you are allowed to drive or not, I've looked into that enough that I think that is a real thing.
Yeah. And that- Ford filed the patent for that, right? That's what started this? But OEs do file patents for stuff- Just- ... all the time- Good point ... that they never actually do. Right. But BlueCruise is already doing this. Mm. I, they already know if you've got your eyes on the road because you're not supposed to fall asleep while you're in [01:37:00] BlueCruise mode.
Mm-hmm. Or, you know, and every man- not every, I guess many manufacturers have that same feature where it's essentially self-driving. So that is monitoring the driver. It is like boiling the frog, and they always sell these things as safety. You'll notice that every time you lose a freedom of some kind or a liberty that you want, it's because they've said, "Well, don't you want fewer drunk drivers on the road?"
And you say, "Absolutely, I do." So therefore- Yep ... everybody is, needs to be monitored. Yeah, yeah. That's kinda scary. I, I've lost all interest in new cars. Y- here's the thing, though. Anything that you hate about them probably exists on the phone in your pocket. Oh, no, no. I, yeah, 100%. Yeah. We're, we all joke, we all, like, complain about tracking, flock cameras.
It's a topic we always talk about, but then we all just, like, openly accept that this thing is tracking us- Yes ... all the time. And don't care. And probably listening. Right. Probably. 100% it's listening. You know it's listening- Yeah ... [01:38:00] 'cause you have a conversation with someone and then you, you get an ad for that.
Like, and the first time that actually ever happened, Tony and Angela, T- Tony, Angela, and I were chatting about, um, prefab buildings And then I went- Got an ad ... and got an ad for a prefab building. I'm like, "Okay, this is not inside of my normal Venn diagram- No ... of discussion." 100% true. Like, we were discussing building barns- 100%
and it was an ad for prefab buildings. And I was like, "That's crazy." And then I, someone told me, "Well, it might be because Tony was searching for it, and the phone knew that the two of you were next to each other for long enough that you and you're friends on social media, so you may have been having a conversation about that.
So it's, was showing you all the ads that it also shows Tony just to see." I was like, "I don't know what's scarier." Wow. I don't know what p- like, the fact that there's that much of a data book on each of us, and y- you put those things together. I showed you before we started that I got this new phone. I spent two hours going through, shutting off everything- Everything
that I was aware of that I could shut off [01:39:00] as far as just the location tracking and the listening and all that. Yeah. I'm, I think I'm about, like, two months out from just buying a dumb phone for the weekends- ... and just using my iPhone for when I have to work, and then just separate from it all. So I, we, we...
I, in my opinion, there was this great moment, um, in technology, I think, when the first cellphone came out. It felt great, like the StarTAC and all those phones, where you're like, "Wow, I can connect with someone when I'm far away, or if I have an issue, I can do this, and, and someone can get me." And then it, like, went past that, and it, like, wasn't good anymore.
Right. Like, I, like, I don't know if I really need all of this stuff. The thing I always said in those days of the BlackBerry- Oh, yeah ... was they say, "Oh, it means you can do your job from the beach." It's like, "No, it means that work can be shuffled- Uh-huh ... to you in greater volume with the expectation that it will come back faster."
I remember once, one of the guys at the publishing company actually said to me, "You will never be more than an hour away from me hearing back from you. Never." [01:40:00] I g- It's terrifying. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I started, when I started the magazines, the BlackBerry had just come out. Yeah. And the company bought me one.
Mm-hmm. Like, it was not an option. Like, "Here's your BlackBerry." Yep. And I had the BlackBerry with the Nextel so they could, like, you know, chirp me wherever I was- Uh-huh ... with a walkie-talkie to ask me a quick question, you know. And at the time, it seemed great. It seemed like, "Oh, look at this thing. It can do all the things."
I didn't realize at that time I was signing up for a digital leash, right? Boiling the frog. Oh, yeah, 100%, 100%. The... I remember my grandfather would come home at night, and he would put his briefcase at the front door, and he would never carry it into the house. And I one time asked him, I said, "Grandpa, you know..."
I, by the way, I think he just had a bottle of Beefeater in there. But, but- The, the thing that made that funny was Beefeater. That was his gin of choice. Yeah. But, um- But I think, you know, h- for him, work ended when he left work. So, like, the [01:41:00] briefcase didn't even come in the house. It, like, stayed in the vestibule.
If only- And now it's like we're just stuck to it ... that's way gone. To bring this back to cars, do you drive any new cars or newer cars? So I just yesterday ordered a car from CarMax. Wait, what? Yeah. I, uh, I have a '99 Dodge Ram V10- Yeah ... four-by-four with a five speed that I bought brand new. And dash is shattered, air conditioning doesn't work, needs a throwout bearing, the brakes aren't that good, the muffler is blown out.
Yep. Just yada, yada, and it's got 150 thou on it. I'm finally like, "I just need another truck," because trucks are a tool for me, and I don't feel like fixing all of this stuff. And so I found a, uh, a new F-250 that I had delivered to my local store that I'll have a look at. And, uh, I am not paid by CarMax at all, but I'll tell you, I've bought three cars there and have really good experiences with them.
Hmm. And one of them I returned. Do you know you can buy them, return them in 30 days with less than 1,500 miles on it, and they give you all your money back? Oh, that's pretty [01:42:00] cool. Yeah. Yeah. Carvana did s- does a similar thing. Do they? Yeah. Yeah. Not, again, not that I'm sponsored by them, but I bought a car from my wife at one point through Carvana, and it sh- Yeah
it was during the pandemic when, like, you couldn't find cars. Yep. They delivered it to our house, and then we didn't want it. And yeah. Yep. Um, well, a- a truck kind of lives in a different space, but I, I was having this conversation with someone the other day that I think anything after 2013, I, I just don't enjoy driving 'cause they've added so much technology in.
I don't like it either. And it's just, there's just too much going on. It takes me too long to, like, figure out how to turn things off. Like, I'll jump in a rental car. I'm like, "I... Why is it doing all these things?" Okay, be careful. But it makes me feel old to say that. You're, you're gonna get in the category I'm in where everyone-
just says, and I hate this cliche, "Okay, Boomer." I'm, uh... Trust me, I get it. I'm so sick of, "Okay, Boomer," because I really dislike the common phrases that pass around the internet that everybody all of a sudden wants to say 'cause it makes them cool. Yeah, yeah. Like years ago, I remember it [01:43:00] was, "Just saying."
Everyone had to give a post, "Just saying." I don't know. I hate that stuff. It's non-creative. You're firmly Gen X, though. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Uh-huh. I'm on the cusp, so I was born on the end- Right ... of the '70s, so I'm end of Gen X. Yep. Which I hold proudly after watching what the next, the next generation is- Yeah
serving us. But, um, it's gotten to a point where I've... I never thought I would become that person, like, the person who didn't like new technology. Yeah. And it has really happened in the past couple of years. And my- New cars are- I mean, you've seen my house. I live in an old house with old tech. Like- Yeah, it's pretty cool
and- You guys should see it ... and I, I kinda keep that part of my life a little bit more secret, but people know I live in an older restored house. And, like, my wife and I have realized through all of this that, like, nothing newer is better. Like, I, it just isn't. It isn't. Like, it isn't. It... Old stuff just works forever.
I mean- Yep ... I just sold, I s- I had this F100. It was the one that my, my wife brought on Power Tour in 2016, and we sold it because w- we got a good price for it and we weren't using it as much. But I used to always joke that it was my apocalypse [01:44:00] vehicle, 'cause there was nothing that a screwdriver and some ether, and I couldn't get the thing running again.
Like, the only brand- Only a California politician could shut you down. Yeah, yeah. It was like- Yeah ... that was like, I always knew that I could... Like, I've never had that thing break and I couldn't fix it. I've had this theory for a long time, and I think it's still true, which is the future is going to be full of junkyards loaded with perfectly good cars, but the touch screen failed.
Oh, of course, yeah. 100%, I believe. I, I mean, of course. I mean, that's actually what makes old cars feel really dated. Like, you could get into a car from the '80s, '90s, and like sure, there are certain things in it that feel, you know, older, but it, it's classic and it works. Get into a car from 2005 that has a screen that doesn't do anything you want it to do, and it's a useless device in the car.
It doesn't connect to your current phone. It doesn't do anything. Where like I can get into an old car and like the HVAC system still just like, I move the slider or I [01:45:00] turn the thing and it works. Oh, dual zone air-conditioning is one of the worst inventions ever. Give me your top five worst new car, car, uh, car techs.
I'll see where mine line up with yours. Well, the face monitoring has gotta be like headline, right? I mean, that's like surveillance level. That's... I, I don't even know if I would consider that a car tech. That feels like- Yeah ... state surveillance level, but yeah. Um, that one's pretty terrible. Uh, I remember there's some cars where you have to dig into the touch screen so deep just to do something like turn on the air-conditioning.
Do you remember the Cadillac where you had to go through the menu to open the glove box? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jump the shark, and that's because it's cheaper for them to just program that in than it is to make a latch. Yeah. Um, I think that anything that involves a deep dive through the touch screen's really bad.
I am enraged by, uh, the- The thing where it keeps itself in the lane I always feel like it's gonna make me crash. I had a Mazda recently that claimed to do that, and I thought, "Let's give this a shot." And I took my hands completely off [01:46:00] the wheel, which theoretically you should be allowed to do. Right. And it drove me headlong into the other lane.
It couldn't see the dot on the ground or something, and it just lost the plot. And that's why they say the driver has to still be paying attention and so on and so forth. Yeah. But it, uh, I think it gives these people a false sense of security. And I'll give you a great example of this. I was with a buddy a couple months ago, and we were at a pizza joint, and this woman pulled in and just clipped his car, scraped the back bumper, knocked the hubcap off, whatever.
And we get out. It's like, "You hit my car." She's like, "No, I didn't." And her ultimate line was, "You don't understand. It's a Tesla. It can't hit you." And she kept saying that over and over. "It can't hit you. It's a Tesla I'm like, "Wow!" Yeah. And- I've seen some Teslas that have run through the side of buildings. Uh, yeah.
I'm pretty sure they can hit you. She honestly believed that she was in this magic contraption that could never run into [01:47:00] anything. Yeah, that's pretty s- that's pretty scary. Yeah. I, I... One of the big ones for me, it's a weird one, is the, uh, push button, uh, handbrake. The worst. Because the concept of the original handbrake was actually an emergency brake- Right
in case things failed, and now it's connected to an electronic device that if for some reason I lost the power system on my vehicle, which I now means I lose my power brakes, and I can't... I don't have a secondary brake for the car. Like, that's scary. Yeah. Right? Also, let's be honest, it's less fun. Yeah.
'Cause giving it- ... an old handbrake or, you know, even a foot brake can have a, you can have a lot of fun with, right? Like, that one's really annoying. Um, there's just a bunch of things. Like, the dual zone climate, I always joke is, uh, it's like if you wanna create a hurricane in the car. Yeah. 'Cause it's like most likely your female passenger has the heat on.
You have it all the way down, and there's like a cold front hitting a warm front in the middle. Yeah. Just weird things happening in the car. Or that cars [01:48:00] now are so sealed that if the window is cracked only on one, the buffeting noise in the car- Oh ... feels like it's gonna blow your eardrums out. That's been going on for a long time.
Yeah. The other one- Doesn't happen in any of my cars from the '70s, that's for sure. You've had the cars where if the door's even cracked open, it puts its own brakes on or throws itself in park. Yeah. It's like, seriously, I can't swing the door open and back out of my driveway while looking at the trash can.
Yeah. Nope, can't do it. Door's open. We're shutting you down. Yeah. I got out of a car the other day and w- and the car was running, and it wouldn't let me open the trunk. Car was in park- Yeah ... but it wouldn't let me open the trunk. I had to go back in the car and sit in the seat and press the trunk open button, but I couldn't do it from the fob.
Power lift gates are enraging. Yeah. I can get a thing open and closed so much more quickly at the airport while the guy's blowing his whistle at me than I can sitting there, having to have it in park, pressing the button and watching it go err. It also, I always grab it at the wrong time and stop it. Yes.
And it reminds me of an [01:49:00] automatic garage door opener, where it's like, err, err, err. Yeah. And you're like, you're trying to get the sequence of the thing, and you're like, "This... I don't know why this frustrates me so much." Yeah. It shouldn't, but it does. And rental minivan doors are that way now. Oh, the side door.
I was like, "You're joking." Yeah. It's like I can't throw this door open? This, this is- Yeah ... definitely the part of the show where the younger people are gonna be like, "Oh, old guys yelling at clouds." Yes. But you know, hey, it is, it is the part. What are some fun projects you're working on right now? I never know when people ask me that question, 'cause there's so many that are just- Yeah
so scattered. Well, I'm gonna start with is, is F-Bomb still a car in your possession? Do you still have it? Yeah, that's probably the vehicle I have that gets asked about more than absolutely anything. Yeah, it's, it's, it's- And it's, it's the one that's absolutely stalled ... it's the most iconic, cool car you have, but- It was in Fast and Furious.
Um- Yep ... it, it is parted out. I mean, this story goes back 10 years. Um, a lifter died at the drag strip, wiped out the whole engine. Yep. Tom Nelson and I put together a whole new plan. I ended up buying a whole bunch of parts. Life went two different ways for both of us. [01:50:00] Lost my job, all this other kind of stuff.
Haven't got back to it. It is just sitting. Yeah. Do you plan to get back to it, or is the car you've kind of- We have a plan. Yeah. I've spent a lot of money. Yeah. So I would say yes, but I never commit, because people ask about it so frequently, and I'm so tired of the, "You said, you said it'd be done this year."
And, uh, I don't know. People don't realize that, um, there is a budget involved in my life. It's like- Yeah, it, I, uh, how many cars do you have now? Uh, down from 44 to 33. Oh, that's good. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, I'm at, like, 25 right now. Um, I wanna try to get down to 12. I think that that's, like, a manageable number.
I've sort of come to a realization that I don't have enough time in the rest of my life to get them finished. Yeah. And it's now at a point where a lot of them are incurring damage because I don't have them stored properly, or, like, I park them, I think I'm gonna get back to them, and then I won't. Like, my Nova's been sitting for two and a half [01:51:00] years now with ethanol in the lines.
Like, I'm sure- Yeah ... I'm gonna have to redo half of that. So, um, you know, it's all those kind of things that just happen when you have too many cars. So it's like trying to find- It is stupid ... find the group. Yeah. It is legitimately stupid. But that doesn't stop me from looking for other cars to buy online all the time.
Oh, every day. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. But the, uh, people always ask me, you may have asked me, "What, what's the cool car that you drive most often?" It's like, I don't really drive. If I'm driving, you usually see it on a show or on a video. Right. That's what I'm driving, 'cause it, in my neighborhood, I don't go to the grocery store.
I, I don't go to the doctor. Right, right. I'm too busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, just for my own fun, go to the cruise night or go to a drag race or go to Power Tour. I don't have time. Yeah. And so therefore, all the cars sit. Anytime I want to run a car that in my mind is turnkey, it needs the fuel system completely flushed, the carburetor rebuilt- Mm-hmm
and a new battery. Mm-hmm. [01:52:00] Every time. Yeah, we definitely keep battery companies in business. Yes. Yeah. There's no battery that seems to last. Like, and I try to unhook things. It doesn't really matter. Yeah. Everything I have, I'm always like- Oh, hey, yeah, that battery. Didn't I just- I just bought that battery.
Yeah, a year and a half ago. Two years ago. And haven't used it. A year ago, because I started to look at all these cars and think, "Man, I'm not using any of these cars." A year ago, I decided, uh, I was gonna sell my daily driver and not own a daily driver- Yeah ... which forces me to drive my cars. And I gave up three weeks ago and bought another daily driver, because- What is it?
What is it? Uh, it's an older Audi, like 2013 Audi S8, which is like, it's got 520 horsepower, twin turbo four cylinder, uh, four liter, and like, uh, V8. And, uh, I just wanted something that was, had cold air conditioning- That's a biggie ... was, was pretty easy to drive, was a larger sized car, and was [01:53:00] still somewhat fast, because the previous daily driver wasn't fun to drive at all, which like- You're old.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I get it. But the, the, the past year has been, I mean, every day it's like driving an escape room, 'cause I don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, today just m- Yeah ... 'cause I had to pull the 911 out that usually sits here, I have my '75 Rabbit out front, which is carbureted, and it took us like 20 minutes to get it started.
I'm like sucking the fuel, 'cause it won't prime. I'm sucking the fuel through the fuel line to prime, to prime the carb, and I'm like, "This is ridiculous," like. And I was driving that every day. Yeah. I was dealing with it all the time. It would get like vapor lock all the time, and 'cause, you know, it was like, "Oh, I n- I need to fix this, but I know how to make it work, so I don't fix it."
Right? Yeah. One of those. And then all of a sudden it was like every single vehicle I had all broke in the same week, and I, my wife looked at me, and she's like, "You need to borrow my car- Yeah ... like to go somewhere. You need an adult car again." I've [01:54:00] had the same thing. It's like I have 33 cars. They sit around, it's like I have one that functions today.
Yeah. One. It makes no sense at all. You make me, you make me feel better about myself. Oh, it's stupid. It really is stupid, and it's a crime, because all my cars are getting ruined by sitting, and the tires also just crack and go flat. It's terrible. Yeah. I've got my cars stored all over the city and beyond in multiple states.
Yeah. You know, it's just, it's dumb. W- what's your favorite storage hack? storage hack Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have like a, like for example, like I'll drop a car off at a body shop that I know- ... is really, really slow at getting things done, because I just don't need it for a year, you know? Yeah, that's a, that's a pretty good one.
The other one is, you want to find ways to inconvenience yourself, and so what you do is you buy that trailer that you need in order to drag cars around and sell them, but then you park a car that doesn't run on the- Of course ... trailer. Of course, 'cause you don't have the parking spot- Right ... so it has to live on top, yeah.
And then conveniently, it's too much trouble [01:55:00] to make that thing run to get it off the trailer to go do what you need to do. Yeah, yeah, so you borrow someone else's trailer for when you need a trailer. Oh, no, you just do nothing. Of course. You just, y- what you do, is you go buy another car. Yeah, yeah, that works.
Yeah. This is what I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People don't get it. Well, the thing I've realized is when you have so many cars, you stop driving certain things for the most random reasons, right? So, like I, I, this Ferrari is the dumbest car I ever bought. I bought it 'cause I sold Hoonigan, and then I regretted it, and I tried to fill the void in my heart with the little bit of money I got out of it, and then I realized I'm just not a Ferrari guy.
But now I'm sitting on it, but I lost the key for it. The key fell out of the fob. Yeah. So, I had the fob, but the actual key fell out, and then I looked at how much it cost to get a new key, and I was like, "I'm just not gonna drive it." And then I finally found the key, but when you try to explain that to people, and they're like, "Wait, you could've just gotten a new key," I'm like, "Yeah, but every one of my projects is just one step away- I'm so with you
from making it [01:56:00] work again." That's, yeah. Yeah. That, and that's what the audience yells at me all the time, is, "Well, why don't you just fill in the blank? It, oh, would only take a weekend to fix it." You're right. Yeah. But then multiply that times 30 and that's my life. And the other challenge is having to make YouTube videos every single week.
I don't do anything where I can't complete a story. Yeah, right. Right. And, and doing a video on changing the master cylinder on my 40 Ford, that's not a video. Yeah. And so I'm not doing it, and so it's parked. What has it been like going back into YouTube, but now solo without a whole team behind you? Like, how different of an experience is that for you?
Oh, a ton. Yeah. A ton. And that's one of those things that I was telling you about earlier, about how when our production got bigger on Roadkill, there were so many people doing things for us. I mean, we had people running to the parts store for us, and Finnegan all the time was like, "Why aren't we running to the parts store ourselves anymore?"
Yeah. Like, well, because we have five days to shoot this show, and you need to [01:57:00] be doing something else while he's running for parts. Yeah. Um, so it- I, I hate to say it is hard to walk away from TV production and realize that, hey, you gotta do things yourself, but I have to do everything. I farm out, uh, editing.
Yep. That's it. I do 100% of everything else myself. But you film everything else, and you put, yeah, all the content together and write it. Yeah. All the filming, all the audio. Yeah, the, that. The- Yeah. And I compile my stuff like crazy. I just... I don't shoot for a week and then dump all the footage on an editor.
I actually go through and sort of soft edit it into folders to give them an outline. Yeah, yeah. So it's literally all you have to do is stitch this together. You don't need to pick the right clip or pick the storyline. I've done that. Yeah. You just need to execute. And fortunately, I got some good guys who do a really good job, and they actually say to me, "Well, we can put more effort into music and cut- Yeah
and polish because we're not having to create the story." Yeah, yeah. That's def- that's definitely helpful. It's interesting 'cause obviously, like you, uh, [01:58:00] Finnegan, Tony Angelo, like everybody's doing their own thing individually. You guys do a lot of crossover stuff. Um, do you feel that that's actually more the future of how this works?
Because we all operated, and I'll, I'll set up the setup for this is like- You guys kind of did it first, where MotorTrend was like, "We're a big company and we're gonna go operate on YouTube," and then you guys left YouTube. You created a massive void that, in many ways, I feel like Hoonigan got the battlefield promotion on.
You guys create a void, and we watched your audience come in quickly. And- So did Derek. Yeah, yeah. And what we watched was we watched actually the characters change in our group, meaning the guys who were doing Japanese cars were still had one audience, but the guys who were building, you know, junkyard LSs was what that audience wanted to see, 'cause that, they were, they were coming from you guys, and it, it changed, you know, what they were doing.
But then obviously it got to the point where, you know, you look at Hoonigan, Donut, a lot of the larger companies have really struggled to figure out how to [01:59:00] keep the big business around YouTube, where the individuals, li- like yourself, like, you know, like, um, you know, Finnegan, and obviously Derek and everybody, and Cletus, like that is a better model than like the big business thing.
Like- It's personalities, not brands. Yeah. You know, companies that say, "Well, people will watch us because we're," fill in the blank. Right. No. Yeah. No, you gotta actually be delivering content people wanna see, with people presenting it. And that's why people can be so successful with what I was complaining about, walking around just doing a selfie cam and posting a video.
It's the personality. Yeah. Um, it's not as much the content as it used to be. Yeah. One of the things that has been shocking to me in doing YouTube is the thumbnail design and the title design, and you look at the data on all that stuff, and I do it like I'm doing magazine covers, and I've found kind of the same subject of know the story is you.
If I say something like, "I bought this and did [02:00:00] whatever," that hits way harder than, "How to buy this and do whatever." Hmm. And in the magazine world, it was completely different. It's like make everything as broad as you possibly can so it applies to as many people as possible, whereas on YouTube, it's cult of, of personality.
It's like, "Here's what I did." Yep. "Here's my car that broke," and that's very different for me. For the first, on Instagram, for the first whatever, I don't know, 10-plus years I used Instagram, um, or l- longer, uh, I never posted really photos of myself. I just posted photos of cars. If I went somewhere, "Hey, here's a cool car," and I post it.
That's how I saw using Instagram. But you look so good in yoga pants. Thanks. I know, I know. Maybe, dude, I send those just to you. Oh, okay. Don't share. You get those on Only Vans, which is a thing where I only just post all my Vans. But then I posted a photo of myself, I think it was, like, I had turned, you know, 42 or something, and, um, I know it was a couple years back.
But, uh, and I posted a photo, and I was like, "This is 42," and it exploded [02:01:00] And I just went and did like a little bit of digging, and it's like, sure enough, like all the data's out there. Like, if you're not posting photos of yourself on Instagram, it's not gonna do well. Mm. And it was such a hard thing for- Even for dudes?
Yeah. It was such a hard thing for me to wrap my head around, of posting photos of myself. And what I re- and then I w- so what I've realized is, is if something, if it's a photo of me, there's a connection to an audience that's like, "Oh, yeah, that's Scotto, so I'm gonna check it," because they're scrolling so fast that they'll scroll right past a car and not engage with it.
I only do it when I'm promoting T-shirt sales. Like, look at that. There's Yeah, see those ... you know, you might wanna try taking a photo of yourself standing or, like, or setting up in front of a car or something. 'Cause I, I, it was a weird thing I noticed, so, like, I begrudgingly started posting more of myself.
Well, now I do podcasts, so it's a little bit easier. Yeah. But it was weird at first to be like, just take a photo of me with a car? Like, that just feels really odd. Yeah, it's, that's weird. But you go [02:02:00] look at a lot of other people, and it's like, that's what works. So. Yeah. I literally do that to sell T-shirts and for sweepstakes promotions.
But here's the other thing about Meta especially, they have sussed out every possible way to shut you down- Oh, for sure ... if you promote anything. Can't say link in bio, can't say- Nothing ... yeah. People are understandably nauseated that I call my videos talkies, but I, I literally- ... go, "Hey, there's a new talkie."
I literally started doing that to try and make the algorithm not see the word channel or video or watch. Are you ... Right, right. I started with talkie, and people are like, "Why do you call it talkie? That's gross." I'm like, "Yeah, that's nauseating. I would hate that if I were you." But that's why I started doing it.
Does that, does the m- does this sort of, as someone who worked in a different business before this, in, in print, does it sort of bother you how much we sort of jump through these hoops and, like, adapt our creative to fit an algorithm? Oh, completely Or to fit that than actually just make the things you wanna make?
It's a different game, and you gotta be- Yeah ... pretty data-driven, [02:03:00] and you gotta be pretty intuitive about what they are doing and, and keep your eye on it. Yeah, I don't like it at all. Yeah. It, it's one of the things that burned me out as well. I, I do this podcast, I say this all the time, like, this is not what YouTube wants.
They don't want a two and a half hour show of two guys talking to each other, like, it's not the model for them. But I don't care. It, it's not the reason that I do it. But, uh, one of the reasons I didn't get back into the regular YouTube game was 'cause of Hoonigan, and I was in the background doing it all.
I just got so burned out with, like, we made this really good show, and everyone loves the show, but for some reason it's not breaking out past- Yeah ... the particular audience because it's not this thumbnail or this format, or we made it too long, or it didn't work for this, or, you know, whatever it is. And it's, it's so, as a, as someone who just enjoys making things, it's, like, kind of just a bummer to be like, "I just have to go make this one thing over and over and over again."
I recently had my worst views ever on a video. I'm like, "What is the deal?" Yeah. It's not a very good video, but it's not the worst ever. World [02:04:00] Cup started that day. And I thought to myself- Oh ... my guys don't care about World Cup. But it's because YouTube cares about it. YouTube cares about some shit. So that's all they were pushing- Yeah
to anybody was that. The really, you know, when I was at, when I was at Hoonigan, we only really uploaded to YouTube. That's where all of our stuff was. So I had nothing to compare to. This podcast, I upload to Spotify and YouTube. And it's really interesting because what will do well on Spot- like Spotify is a lot more consistent, but what sometimes will do very well on YouTube, like won't matter.
It'll just do the same on Spotify. But then something that'll do poorly on YouTube does well on Spotify. See- And it's, it- you can really tell the difference between the algorithms there, you know? My belief is that YouTube is crawling the rest of the net, and if they see the content that's identical to what they've got, then they're not gonna show your- Hmm
content to people 'cause they know that it's not unique to them. We don't even wanna get down the rabbit hole of YouTube conspiracy theories. I definitely, it sacrificed animals to the algo gods- Yeah ... to figure out how to make things work, [02:05:00] so. Yeah. I saw you were building, uh, was it a Model A frame? A hot rod frame?
I am. I'm starting to build a Model A coupe. Nice. And, uh, my buddy Sam is helping me out a lot with that, which has led to a whole bunch of, "You can't even build your own car." But yeah, you're right, I cannot fabricate and TIG weld. Yeah. 100% not in my skillset, but I'm happy to be putting the thing together.
It's gonna be neat. Is that one of your first, like, more old school original hot rods? 'Cause you mostly- I- ... did muscle car era stuff, right? I am mostly a muscle car era guy who has always appreciated the older stuff, or at least in the last 20 years I've really appreciated the other stuff. Um, I did do a 1930 Model A drag car.
Okay. Um, my whole goal with that one was to see how simple of a car can I build that will run 8.50 in the quarter mile? And this thing, there's not a computer on it. It doesn't even have an electric fuel pump. This thing is got four wires in it. It is just dead simple. Mm-hmm. And, uh, the second time we took it to the track, it [02:06:00] ran 8.501 at 155, and so I was stoked on that.
So that's like a, that's a hot rod. It's an old Model A, but it's a drag car. Yeah. This is my first '30s car that will probably get complete. I've had a, a whole bunch of cars that I bought because, "I'm gonna build this", and then never- Same, same here ... never did. So, this'll be the first one that gets complete.
Yeah, I, I... The other day as I was thinking about how I was gonna cut down my list of cars, instead of, I used to just look at the list and I got s- it was so hard to cross, like, car names off. Uh-huh. Right? Like, "Oh, do I really wanna get rid of that?" And instead, I wrote a list of the 12 types of cars I want.
Yes. Right? I've done that too. And then, and then like, okay, now, what do I have that fits into those slots? And one that just always shows up for me is, like, a traditional hot rod. And it was something, I grew up in New York City around European cars. I was ne- it was never something I was interested in. But when I moved to California, you know, I think the first Moon Eye show I went to- Yeah
when I first moved here, whatever, how long ago was that [02:07:00] now? Um, in 2010, 2011. So, you know, it was the first one I went, I was like, I just caught, I, I caught it immediately, and I was like, "This is awesome. I love it." I ended up buying the Nova because it made a lot more sense as a vehicle at the time, and I didn't, again, I didn't have the fabrication skills to do what I would, needed to do for a hot rod, so it was, it was a little out there.
But that for me, every time I see one, I'm like I should sell half my cars to build one of those. They're j- it's just so classic and fun. And then I got, like, friends with all the guys from Race of Gentlemen, and they all convinced me that, you know, everything has to be this purist, traditional car, and then it becomes just way too hard of a car to build.
That's, that's way too hard. That's, that's a costume party. It is a costume party. I love those guys, but it is 100% hot rodding cosplay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is, it's cool to see them do it. It's great to see the cars continue, and the race on the beach is fun. Did you go to the one up in- Did not
Fresno? No. Yeah. Um, it was... It rained, so made it, made it not as much fun, but, um, yeah, no, it's, uh, it is, but it's, uh, I, I, I l- [02:08:00] That kind of is the thing that dragged me back into, like, that, uh, like, wanting to build and look into that culture, and then do, like, a lot more of my... And I, and I know you're like this, too.
I then wanna know everything about it. Yeah. So I then do all the research, and I find out all the stuff about all the old builders. And, and then I go down, like, all these weird rabbit holes, and, and I've realized for me, that's almost as much fun as building cars sometimes, is sitting there and like, "Oh, I didn't know this about, you know, like, Offy engines."
And then all of a sudden, it's like you just keep digging and keep digging and finding more and more, and- Yep ... and then that would lead me to go and buying, you know, old issues of, you know, of old magazines because a lot of the information's actually not on the internet- Yep ... for some of that old stuff, so.
No. Yeah. Same. Yeah. Same stuff. One thing that, uh, I know about you is you really like random factoids. Yeah. It's kind of something that you bring. You got any- Well, you brought up Offy engine. I'm sitting here, should I tell him the story about- Yeah, do. Tell, tell him. I was gonna say, hit me with a, hit me with a, with a r- the really random factoid that [02:09:00] you got.
You've heard of Cragar as a business? Of course. You know that they made Indy racing- Mm-hmm ... engines at the time. Do you know what Cragar means? No. No one does. Craig Dartt is the guy who was the business owner- Ah ... and, and he was involved in, uh, I'm, I'm gonna mess this up. There's so many engine builders who were overlapping each other in those early days- Yep
of Indy building stuff, like Harry Miller and stuff. I was gonna say Miller's a big one, yeah. I read- Miller was a big one. Yep. He's involved in this also. And what's interesting is this guy, Craig Dartt, and also Miller, and the name of another machinist I can't remember off the top of my head, they had grown their business enough that they had this building in Hollywood, and then they went out of business and ended up selling off parts of the business.
And the Cragar part that we know, uh, was the Cragar overhead valve conversion cylinder head for a Model A Ford. Yep. And that was sold to a guy who was running Bell Auto Parts in Bell, California, [02:10:00] and he ended up- s- dying, selling the company to one of his employees, Roy Richter, who is the guy who then made the Cragar wheel- Mm
and was also selling Cragar superchargers and all of that. The Indy engine side of the business, and this is the fun factoid to me, they had a building that was over there in Hollywood, and in World War II, um, Howard Hughes was running a machine shop out of the building, building munitions- Mm ... and guns and things like that, because directly across the street was Howard Hughes's place that was on, uh, Romaine Street in Hollywood, which is where he allegedly- Mm
famously locked himself in the screening room and was, like, storing jars of urine and all that other kind of stuff. But I always like how sort of the bigger-picture culture sort of interacts with the hot-rodding culture- Oh, yeah, yeah ... with stuff like that, and Howard Hughes is a fun connection, and- H- do you, have you, have you happened to ever read The Taking of the K-129 by Josh Dean?
It's about the story where the US government contacts Howard Hughes to go [02:11:00] recover a Russian submarine. That's a true story. I know. My buddy wrote that book, or- Oh, really? Yeah, he's, 'cause he was a New York journalist, and he wrote it. It is such a fantastic story. I mean, it's a, just an era of America that I feel like, uh, maybe it does exist anymore, but the, like, answering the phone, they're like, "We need you, you know, you need to do your country," you know?
Uh-huh. You know, like, "You need to serve your country, and in doing that, you need to create an entire fake oil-digging exploration- Yes ... to go do this." Yeah. Um, it is a very, very interesting read. 'Cause it is, it's all true, but Howard Hughes is just such a crazy story. Well, and what is it they were really looking for when they found the Titanic?
I don't know Oh, yeah, that's something, you should probably look that up, too. What is the name of the guy from Woods Hole Institute that found it? Shoot. Can't remember his name right now. They were looking for something else for the government when they did that. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah, this one was great, 'cause, like, they realized that only Howard Hu- only Howard Hughes was, was crazy enough that no one would question him-
doing some [02:12:00] weird offshore digging thing where he developed this new machine. Yeah And really what they were doing was just be- creating sort of a shadow moment where they could go down and lift this thing up. But the amount of work that they went into, like, putting it all in. It, it, it's, it's, it's... Again, it's one of those books where I bought it to support my friend and, like, his writing, and then I read it and I was like, "I didn't know I cared this much about this.
This is great." To me, I think car guys and hot rodding ties into so much of this stuff, where it's just r- radical things that guys manage to figure out- Right ... and do with mechanical things. Um- And especially in that era, the '50s era, 'cause so much of it was post-war aviation and engineering and tech that was, like, also hot rodding.
Yeah. So it's like everybody had a friend who worked at, you know, a Boeing or a Grumman or whoever and was like, "Oh yeah, we c- we got machine shops. We can do this. We can do that." Yeah. And to think that those two things lived so closely together at one point, you know? It's certainly, certainly a good one.
No, but I, I, uh, I, I know that you were always known for your, for your little f- fun facts. Yeah. So that's a, [02:13:00] that's a good one. U- u- useless trivia. Is it useless, though? I don't know. So I think, you know, in, in an era where, you know, where AI is removing all of our information, it's, we're, we're gonna be important.
Someday someone will come to you and be like, "We need all your useless trivia. We have to write it down." But I need the AI to remember, like, names for me, like I just, you know, slipped on whoever that guy was that I'll figure out at midnight tonight. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Any- you got anything else going on?
Man, I just had the most outrageously negative Facebook post in my history. I cannot believe how hard guys are going against me on this thing. Name-calling, dismissing- What, what- ... my value as a human ... more, more so than when you guys went behind a paywall? Yes. I thought that was the most difficult moment in your life.
That at least was not my fault. It's like I did not make that decision, right? Although everyone thought I did, and I still deal with that today, people calling me a sellout for taking it off YouTube when... And they say, "You promised you'd always be on YouTube." [02:14:00] It's like, "How could I make that promise? I was an employee."
I was an employee. "I wasn't in charge of the platform." No, this was worse. So it, this thread has, I think, 5,700 comments on it right now, and most of them are absolutely tearing me down as a human being because I called the American Graffiti coupe hideous
Yeah. I, I, I mean, I understand why people are mad, but I also don't think you're, I don't think you're wrong. Right. So, and many people had that response, which I think is reasonable. That's fine, and I encourage disagreement. It's that people are frothing. And, I guess what happened was, I just made it as a quip in a YouTube video.
Yeah, yeah. "Ah, yeah, for the record, Milner's car is hideous." And then I explained it on Facebook, 'cause people were asking about it. I was like, "Well, it's because it's got a section grille shell, and the body is not channeled- Mm-hmm ... so that makes no sense, and this is running downhill, and these things don't fit, and this is incongruous."
And, you know, I just listed all the stuff what's wrong. People have [02:15:00] legitimately lost their minds. And, like I said, disagreement, fine. The name-calling and actual just vitriol coming from people is stunning to me. If, uh, let's say, what's a car that I actually really value? Say, the Eastwood & Bearcat Coupe, which is a famous '32 Ford.
Mm-hmm. It was the first primer car on the cover of Hot Rod. If I scrolled past your post, and you just tore this thing into the ground, I would go, "Huh. Okay," and keep scrolling. Yeah. I would not bother to write in all caps, you know, "Your opinion doesn't matter. No one cares, you moron. You never did anything worthwhile in your life," yada, yada, yada.
It's like, the thing that social media has done, where you're allowed to just say things to people- Yeah ... online that you would never say to their face in volume, it's pretty incredible. I had a conversation with a friend of mine, um, do you know Richard Chang? He was at Super Street- No ... back in, like, late 90s, [02:16:00] early 2000s.
No. So he ran... Okay. Um, you guys were probably in the same building at some point, but- Probably ... um, but we had, and then he went on to go work at The New York Times and do the automotive column for them, and then he came to Zero to 60 when I was doing that. But we had this conversation about how, as once journalists, it's weird that now everybody has the platform to say something, where there used to be a certain amount of vetting for people to have the ability- Right
to speak on something. And they were ta- they had an element of, like, fact-checking, and an editorial team, and all these other people who prevented them from saying something that was wrong or whatever, right? And the internet has pretty much given everyone the opportunity to say whatever they want, and the crazier thing they say, the more the algorithm's like, "Ooh, people wanna see this."
Bump that up. So you say something horrible about someone, and take a personal attack, and the algorithm's like, "Yeah, we're gonna float that one to the top." Yeah. So it's like, it's, it's really- Well, but, but- It's democratized the platform to allow anyone to have a [02:17:00] say, but maybe that's not a good thing. But I am the guy who you're saying might not be a good thing.
I voiced my opinion on there. Yeah, but- But that's the thing, opinions are no longer allowed unless the audience agrees with them. Right. Yeah. That's the thing. Yeah. But, but I think, but I, I actually think of it more as the person who's replying to you, because you have- Y- you're w- you're, you are welcome to that opinion because you have a history of, of knowledge and information around this as a subject matter.
So, you have that. And maybe the people who are r- replying to you say, "Uh, hey, I don't des- I disagree with you," but then fight it on the valance of it, right? And say, "Oh, this is the reason why." Instead of like, "You suck, you don't know anything, fuck you, and fuck all the cars you ever built." Well, that's most of what it is.
Yeah. It is literally your opinion is absolutely irrelevant because- Yeah ... you build junky cars and so on and so forth. But, uh, yeah, so let's make it a car- I- ... thing in the conversation here, which is I think we all grew up knowing, well, you don't criticize another guy's car. Yeah. He loves it. Yeah. He has every right to build it- Yeah
the way it is. That's fine. [02:18:00] Doesn't affect me. This was a 50-year-old movie prop. Yeah. I'm not going after an individual at all. Yeah. And furthermore, here's a question that I've always had, because I was trained to critique guys, uh, to critique cars by guys like Gray Baskerville and Pat Ganal, who are both legendary hot- Mm-hmm
rodding journalists. Do we have a right to critique cars? There's movie critics, food critics, theater critics, music critics, so- Uh, this I think is a, is a really great conversation, 'cause one of the things that we hear a lot is like the term respect all builds, right? And I, I don't think that you should, but I also think that like you shouldn't be overtly mean about it either.
I guess that's what I was. The word hideous was probably a trigger. Yeah. But it's also like i, I also think it's a very d- like, the reason why I say respect all builds is because I don't want anyone to leave the community because it feels like they don't wanna be here, right? Someone builds a like, just a not...
And you know, you mentioned it before, like a good [02:19:00] car is a good stance. Like you, we've all seen those cars where it's just missing the package, right? Like they threw some parts at it, it doesn't really work for whatever reason, and you know, it's like, all right, that's not my cup of tea, but like I'm not gonna tear the person apart.
Now, if that car went and won some major award, I now may feel like, okay, I need to say something because it doesn't deserve the attention it's received. So, I think that there's this fine line of like the respect all builds, because I think as just a car community person, car culture person, like, you know, a lot of people drive ugly cars, but like it's pretty to them, right?
Like I'm not gonna tell someone their baby's ugly. But that doesn't mean their baby's not ugly. You know what I'm saying? Like- Right. But- Like, and there, there's that world there of that. But I think when you take a vehicle and you put it in the public space, you bring it to SEMA, you, you put it in a movie You open yourself for- You open yourself to being a public figure.
If you show up to, like, a local cars and coffee or a car show or you come to P- Hot Rod Power Tour, you're not [02:20:00] asking for someone to judge your car, right, on the same level, right? But if you put it in one of, in a big place like that or you show up to, you know, you show up to Grand National Roadster Show- Yeah, you're kind of- You're asking for critique
you are. That, that's the business. I think that's a good way to put it. Yeah. It's the difference between you painting your own painting for your house and you putting it on display at The Louvre. I mean, it's there for- Yeah ... for critique. Yeah. Um, in this case, yeah, I wouldn't just criticize some guy's car at a car show.
Yeah. I've told my kid, "Hey, you know, keep it down." There's no, there's no reason to, you know- Right, right ... criticize this guy. It, it does nothing for you, and it does nothing for him. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, in this case, it felt to me like it's a vaunted thing, it belongs in the movie, it represents what it meant to represent, but as a '32 Ford Coupe, it's not that good.
Yeah. And you can feel free to disagree with me, that's fine. But it also doesn't mean that my [02:21:00] 40-year career has been demolished- Right ... and dismissed- Right ... by my opinion on a 50-year-old movie car. I, I, but I also, I think there's a world where we were all told that we had to accept certain things as just fact, and I'm gonna bring something up that, um, uh, someone's coming on the show and we're gonna discuss, uh, top car films.
And I was like, "Well, do you have any hot takes?" And they said, uh, "Two-Lane Blacktop is a horrible film." It is. And I ha- and I told myself, I have to go re-watch it, because I have bought into the idea that it's an amazing film. But I also don't think I've watched it in a decade plus. It's- And I watched it under a different light, and I was like, "You know what?
I gotta go re-watch it because I, you might actually be right." Because Fast and Furious 1's a horrible movie, right? Yeah. But like it, it, it, it birthed an entire audience, but it's a, it's, it's a bad remake of Point Break, right? Like, with cars. And all the car stuff is ridiculous in it- Mm-hmm ... and like, not real, and like, they didn't get it right.
And- But y- But, but I still understand the impact of [02:22:00] the movie. So but I, but there's a lot of people that if you went on today, and you said, "You know what?" And to double down, "Two-Lane Blacktop is a horrible movie"- Oh, yeah ... you'd have another 5,700 comments, 'cause we were all told that we had to buy into that.
But actually, I think you nailed what the problem is here, which is American Graffiti not only is, you know, a American classic- Yeah ... right? But it absolutely formulated people's opinions or reinforced their own- Mm-hmm ... uh, experience. And so they are bonded to it, and that has become inseparable from, "Yeah, but the car wasn't styled that good."
Yeah. And, and so what I did is I went to their absolute heart by criticizing the car. Two-Lane Blacktop, of course I have fondness for that movie, because what it is is, wow, there aren't many movies that actually get us as car guys. Yeah. And that was a, a cool car, and- Yeah ... they were kinda livin' the life- Yeah
the way I wanna live my life. But you look at it objectively as a film critic, you're like, "That movie's not that good." Yeah. Dirty Mary Crazy Larry's the [02:23:00] better movie Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is the one that I usually say is my favorite car movie- I think it's fantastic ... when people ask, and it's because I love the driving action- Mm-hmm
and everything. But if you look at it, Peter Fonda is not likable in that movie. No, no. Not at all. Yeah. But the problem is, really no one's likable in that movie. No. Yeah. None of them. Yeah, yeah. But nonetheless, to me, it has a strong point in my childhood, as, as, "Oh, Dodge Chargers are cool and you should drive them on dirt."
I made my career out of that. I was about to say, you guys have done that a bit. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah, no, it's, uh, the internet's become a weird place, 'cause y- if you would've said that in an issue of Hot Rod back in the day, you may have gotten a couple letters Be like, "I can't believe you said that," maybe I guess people would've been angered, 'cause Hot Rod Magazine should not make a stance like that, and here it's like, "Hey, this is my opinion about stuff.
Yours may differ, and that's okay- Yeah ... and I'm not gonna call you names." What's amazing is the people who would say, "You have no right to criticize [02:24:00] this car. And by the way, you've never built anything that was any good." Yeah. It's like, but you just criticized my car. And I, I will also say there isn't a car guy on the planet who doesn't walk around a car show and go, "Ugh."
Yeah. As a matter of fact, in my post I said, "People say that I don't have a right to critique cars, but those are the same people who will loudly speak out against the Carolina Squat." And that's what you're doing, is criticizing that guy's car build. Mm-hmm. So anyway. Yeah. I just found it an interesting sort of social study about how vehement people got over it, just absolutely frothing.
Yeah, 'cause I think you, I think you tapped into a piece where it's almost faith. Like, you b- you just believe that this is, the car is really important, and then you can't say anything bad about it. Yeah, I guess. Right? Like, there's just certain things like that, so. Well- Got any other hot takes you wanna drop?
Some cars are ugly of every single generation, and it's just a fact. Yeah, that's true. I think one of the interesting things, too, is [02:25:00] looking at what, you know, looking now at w- at style versus back in the day, and it's like there's this revisionist history. You watch people build cars today to replicate something in the past, you're like, that's not how it was back then.
Right. Cars didn't, like, cars didn't have that look. They didn't have that feel. And now everyone's starting to see cars in, like, a, you know, in, like, sort of a... It's not really even, like, a resto mod version, even if you're trying to restore it. Like, you're still restoring it with, like, a modern- Oh, completely
look to it, and it's like none of the cars back in, in the day were like that. Well, and in this post, guys accused me of the opposite, which I think is an extremely fair argument, which is you're viewing this thing through the eyes of now. People said, "You can't consider how it- Yeah, but- ... it is now." I was like, well- There was a lot of other cars in that era that were very good
that's the thing. I actually said, "No, I'm comparing it to other cars from 1962- Yeah ... that were much more put together than this, and still built by teenagers- Yeah ... in their home garage with limited tools and no [02:26:00] aftermarket." Yeah. And let's be honest, infamously, picture cars are bad They do a horrible job of putting them together.
They're usually put together by half a mechanic and half an art team- Mm-hmm ... that's just trying to make it look good for camera. I've worked on movie sets. Yeah. Like, a lot of the cars are just, like, cobbled together. When my car was in the Fast and Furious movie, which, I can't remember which one it was in.
Anyway, the story is they had built, like, five or six clones- Right ... you know, to wreck in the movie. There was one of them where they sledgehammered the bashed quarter panel into it, tech screwed another quarter panel on top of it, Bondo'd over the tech screws, and sent it down the road. You know, that's how movie cars are built.
Yeah. Did they pay you for that, or was it just kind of a cool thing to be a part of? Mm. Yeah. No, it was just like, "Hey, can we use your car for this?" And I was like, "Sure." Uh, you know Dennis McCarthy? Know of, but don't know. Okay. You know, he was the guy who called me, and, um- It turned interesting because many toys have been [02:27:00] made of the F-bomb Camaro, and some of them are universal licensed.
Mm-hmm. And I actually s- sent one to my ... I found a trademark attorney- Yeah ... and sent it to him, I was like, "Can they do this? Because they put my car in a movie." He's like, "Do you have an agreement with them?" "No, I have no written agreement with them whatsoever." And he said, "Well, yeah, they can't do this. That is your likeness, your- Yeah, yeah
your intellectual property, the logo on the side of that car." And, um, but it turned out that I had let too much time lapse. Oh. And I didn't know about it, and he's like, "No, you didn't defend it, like in two years- In a certain amount of time, yeah ... it's like you don't have a shot." Yeah. You know? We, um, they had wanted my 911, you know, and the 911 still to this day has Hoonigan stickers on it, 'cause it was part of the, the look for the car.
And there was n- they basically told us that, like, they're gonna do with, whatever with the car, and we'd have no control over editorially what happens to the car. Sure. If the ca- you know, I was like, "So the car could belong to, like, a meth head, and like we [02:28:00] have no control over that?" And at the time the brand was still young, and when they were like, "We're gonna build 10, you know, copies of it and this and that," we're like, "Eh, it's like we built it as a brand car initially."
And we're like, "I don't know if it's really worth it, right? Because, like, you just don't know what's gonna happen. Like, the v- it could be in the film for three seconds- Which mine was ... and be, and be- Yeah ... like a, you know, a villain car and not something cool. Or it could be something that becomes huge and, like, but then they would control the licensing rights for it.
Yeah. And we were like, "Mm." It's funny, 'cause I forget that your car was in that. For me, your car was just, like, it was a, I, I, to me it was the beginning of sort of this second version of muscle cars that we got to see, and, like, that car inspired my Nova a lot, which was, like, I just wanted it to be rough around the edges and fast and scary, but, like, had a, like, a, a, an, a purpose-built intention, but not worry about any of the little things, you know?
Like, underneath everything is great, right? My car had a Art Morrison chassis underneath, Edelbrock [02:29:00] 555, all of that, but I would leave it parked in Venice, because it just d- it didn't look special. And, like, that was, you know, I was ... And I felt like that car, for me, was one of those first, like, it's looks like it got pulled out of the junkyard, but underneath it's really, really well done.
Long, long time ago, I was at SEMA and met a guy who worked for Mercedes. Mm-hmm. And, um, I think one of the guys from MotorTrend introduced me, and, you know, he wasn't a high-up guy, he was just, like, an engineer or something like that. And he actually said, he asked about that car and he said, "You know, that's one of the cars that made us realize satin paint was okay- Mm-hmm
and why they started coming out with the flat clears and stuff." Not like I invented that, but he's like, "That was a- Yeah ... that it was an element of what we saw coming in the marketplace- Mm-hmm ... that made it- Yeah ... made it okay. And then look at how big flat paint got. Yeah. To the point that I'm now, like- Is it gone now?
I think it's gone again, but like I'll- Yeah ... you'll still see, like, brand new Teslas. I mean, Mercedes offers flat paints from the factory. Right. I saw a Maybach the other day, but it was [02:30:00] flat. Yeah. And probably a, you know, probably an optionary thing from, you know, from, uh, from the dealer, um, or, like, through the factory.
And it's crazy to think that that became so big and then ushered its way there to now the point that I think that the average enthusiast doesn't like flat anymore because, like, their mom has, like- Oh ... a flat black Land Rover, you know? Play it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the time it was super cool. I mean, I remember when I did my Nova I got it in satin instead of flat black 'cause it already felt like, oh, there's too many flat cars out there.
Uh-huh. It's gotta be the ... It was, like, metallic, but satin, you know? When we're at the point of arguing over our patina- Yeah ... down to what's good and what's bad. The n- the nuance of it. Oh, that's a, that's a unfortunately really valid point, so what's next? Uh, what am I gonna go home and do? I just bought a '40 Ford sedan that as soon as it got unloaded off the pilot truck, the brake pedal went to the floor, so I haven't driven it more than 100 feet with the emergency brake that works, not [02:31:00] electronically.
Yes. So, I need to get that going. I have a barn find, '70 Dodge Super Bee, that I learned a lesson on, which is, don't put a car on the channel until you're ready to follow through and actually get it built. Uh, 'cause it's- I can tell you a lot about that. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a year, and I- We, I call it- ... need to make that happen
I call it the game clock. Yeah. Which is the minute you show a vehicle, the game clock has started. Yeah. And people are gonna start asking why it's not done. Yep. So, like, if you buy it, and you don't plan on touching it for years, I bought this E-Type that I found super cheap from a l- a guy who was building lowriders.
I remember, you told me about that when you got it. Yeah, and I didn't tell- That was, like, 10 years ago ... I, and I didn't tell anyone, and I mentioned on the podcast, and weekly now, I get people sending me E-Type stuff, and I'm like, "I'm gonna build that with my son when he's of age to do it." I was like, "It's just gonna sit."
Yeah. So, yeah. But yeah, game clock, gotta be careful. M- the minute you announce it, "Why isn't it done yet?" Yeah. Well, the F-bomb Camaro's about a 13, 14-year game clock. And it's- Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you're absolutely right. These are the things that you learn as you go, and so I launched that one way too soon, [02:32:00] and I've been getting, "Why haven't you worked on it?"
And of course, because people just love to hate, it degenerates to, "You never finish anything. You promised you were gonna do this, and you haven't done it." And it's like, ugh. I'm, I'm gonna, what we can end on this, I think a really good show idea is basically, like the TV show Hoarders, but for- Yeah ... guys like us.
Right. And somebody comes to us, like, we, they force us to whittle down our collection, and, but then they help us get those cars done by selling the other cars off. Like, I would probably pay for that service. The problem is- Because I go through it in my head, but then I don't do it ... we're, like, the most broke hoarders of cars that- Yeah
you see, because how many guys do you know who have massive collections, but they're in their air-conditioned warehouse with all their- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ... neon signs and all their mancave-y stuff? Well, you, most of your cars are outside? I have a lot of cars outside- Yeah ... and in storage garages, and with stuff stacked on top of them.
Yeah. And keep in mind, most of my cars are $500 garbage. Yeah. You know? That's a stupid thing. It, it, it's the [02:33:00] same. I have probably f- five or six nice cars. And then the rest of them are things that, like, I bought parts cars, and then was like, "You know what? This really isn't a parts car." I know. "It's kind of nice."
How many times have I done that? Yeah, or like- Yeah ... or I buy, like, something ridiculous. In my head, I think I want it. I bought this, uh, '75 F600 crew cab, um, that was lowered, uh, on a '78 chassis. And I don't know. I- in my head, I'm like, "Dude, this isn't that big of a project." And it's like, when I actually, like, sat down and papered it out, I'm like, this is, like, what I want to do with this is, like, over $100,000 build.
This is insane. Like, I, I was in my head not thinking it was gonna be that, you know? I always think everything will build itself in five minutes. I know, I know, I know, and you sit there, and you're like, "Oh, what am I doing with this?" But with all that said, like, I, the $500 cars just bring me more happiness. I don't know why.
'Cause, like, this is a good example. When something breaks on this, I get so much agita, 'cause I'm like, "Oh, what is this gonna cost? I probably ain't gonna be able to do it myself." Yeah. "It's [02:34:00] going to require this," and like, ugh, where like, when something breaks on one of my, like, whatever cars, I'm like, "I could go buy a whole other car to fix this with if I need to."
Let me life coach you here a little bit. Yes, yeah, yeah. So- Not that I think you are- The right guy ... I've seen, I've seen it, but sure, I'll, I'll listen. Well, here's my current theory. It's not in practice yet, but it's a good theory, which is I w- my problem is I'm interested in so many different types of cars.
Same. As are you. Yeah. So I realize I buy them, I want to have them, I want to make something of them, I want to make videos with them, and then that never happens. And so what I want to do is get my fleet down to, like you said- Yeah ... the list of what types of cars do I need? I really want a big old American convertible, and I would like a rock crawler, and I would like this or that.
Same. Figure out how to fit it, which- Mm-hmm ... we talked about earlier, but then to fulfill my need for all sorts of different cars, I want to buy them, experience them, and get them gone. And not flip and make money, but just literally- Yep ... go, "You know what? I want to buy a '32 Roadster, and I want to drive [02:35:00] the thing all the way across the country."
Yep. Once I do that, it's out of my system. I can get rid of that car, even if it's a little bit of a loss, because I've bought the experience. It's better than gambling in Vegas, in my opinion. Yeah. And so you have your core list, and then you just have one that constantly rotates so that you've got that variety that keeps your mind going.
Yeah, I, I've sort of looked at the same thing. Three buckets that I'm putting my current list of cars in, which is forever keepers, and I should probably make them nicer, because even my nicest cars, like my 911, like still doesn't have a headliner in it, and it hasn't for 15 years, right? Um, but then I have the other ones, which is, I need to experience this car and then get rid of it, and then the last one is, is your eyes were bigger than your belly.
Right. Like, like this is just too much of a project. You're never gonna do it. Just be rid of it, right? And it's like those are the three classes, and then go work on the experience cars, make these cars nicer to keep, and part with these. So I have that same list, plus the most [02:36:00] insidious one- ... which is, I've got this car, I don't really need it, but I know it will get massive views if I actually build it and bring it back.
Yep, and that's the business side of it. Yeah. Yeah. Which is sad to say. But that's how I justified all of these cars. Yeah. When I moved out here, I owned three cars. I had a pickup truck, I had my 911, and I had a project car. Which is like, what I think is the per- As it should be ... the perfect normal person thing, right?
Like, my pickup truck was also my daily driver. It got work done. I had a fun car to drive all the time that I didn't really mess with, and I had a car that never ran. That's like, that's like a normal person collection, and then I got Hoonigan and a warehouse- Yep ... and I'd be like, ooh, we should do this, we should do this, we should do this, and it just spun completely out of control.
Having a, a unpaid place to store things was a big part of my problem. Yeah. A lot of people will accuse me of, "You don't understand the real world because Hot Rod paid for all your cars." Like, no they [02:37:00] didn't. There was no budget for that- Yeah ... ever. However, they did have a shop where I parked a lot of stuff.
Yeah. I mean, I bought a farm f- with the sole purpose of just storing stuff there. Do you still have that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's where most of my crap is. So- What, what do you charge for a car comes? We'll talk afterwards. The problem is, is it's not a flat farm. It's like rolling hills, uh, like s- in North County, San Diego, and, um, so
and I also have a lot of mice. And that, I didn't realize- Yeah ... how big of a problem mice can be, so. Mice, black widows. Yeah. Yeah. I get, um, one of my storage places, they put a roof on it, a rental garage, and left tar paper all over my cars that were in the thing. It's just, having a bunch of cars and not having time to deal with them all or storing them is not a good idea.
Yeah, yeah. On that note On that big negativity- Yeah ... cars are fun. Talking to you is a little bit like, what is it? Is it, uh, A Wonderful Life? It's like your Christmas future [02:38:00] or whatever. Like, is that, is that... No, Scrooge, right? Scrooge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A Christmas Carol. A Christmas Carol, that's the one I'm looking at.
Yeah. Like, I'm just looking at what my future looks like. I'm like, "Yeah, that's, that's where I'm, that's where I'm headed." So, but it, it's similar to you. I, when you said it, I don't think I've ever put it better. It's like I see something, and I'm like, "I want to experience that." Yeah. I want that. Like, I really want, like, a '60s Cadillac convertible.
I don't know how long I want it for. Right. But I want that experience, you know, so. Anyway, thank you guys all for listening. Um, if, uh, if, you know, if you're still tuned in, that, it means that you probably also have, uh, 30 cars at home that you're trying to- ... uh, excuse, uh, validate, um, justify, all of those things.
Listen to this man, 'cause he'll give you good reasons for why you should keep all these cars. And I think most importantly, I think the greatest lesson, uh, I've learned from, you know, being around you, watching your stuff, it's like, what, what is it? It's like, you know, it doesn't have to be- Don't get it right- Don't get it right
just get it running. Just get it running. Like, that is it. So anyway, Dave, [02:39:00] unless you have anything else? I'm good. Thanks for having me. Thanks, buddy. Yep. Thanks for coming on.
The mailbox is full, full, full, full. The mailbox is full, full. The mailbox is full, full and cannot accept any messages at this time. Goodbye. Goodbye. Of all the sunglass companies out there, you might ask, why Heat Wave? Aside from them being friends of mine, they just make great shades. Awesome styles, cool collabs, smart tech.
They even have extra large sizes for big heads like me. And for those of you wearing this on the job, they make ANSI Z87 spec safety glasses too. But what really attracts me to Heat Wave is that they are physically a part of our culture. You will find them everywhere from King of the Hammers to Formula Drift.
You'll see everyone wearing Heat Waves at your local track day event. Damn, you might even turn laps with the co-founder, Justin, because they're one of us. So [02:40:00] one more reason to choose Heat Wave Visual to fix your face. I'm a tool dork. My obsession might even dwarf my addiction to cars. I love collecting unique and specialty tools, which is how I initially fell in love with Wera.
First off, they just make aesthetically pleasing tools. They feel good in your hand, they have a great finish, their sizes are universally color-coded, and they are super strong. In two decades, I've never broken a tool from Wera. I wish I could say the same about my other tools. But the thing I like the most about Wera is that they create clever solutions for your wrenching woes, because you need overengineered tools to work on today's overengineered cars.
So if you're ready to step up your tool game, whether it's the Zyklop ratchet or the Joker wrenches, find them at weratools.com. What's that old saying? Don't ever meet your heroes. Unfortunately, this applies to cars too, as my buddy Ken Block discovered when he bought his Ford RS200. To say it politely, the suspension sucked.
So we went to KW to fix it on their [02:41:00] seven-post suspension rig. Some say it was misappropriated in the middle of the night from an F1 team, and it once knocked out the power grid of a small village. But what we do know for certain is that this machine allows KW to create any test conditions needed to best develop their suspension across the entire product line.
Go check out kwsuspension.com and get yourself a kit developed on this insane seven-post technological torture device. I, I mean suspension rig.